Författare: Stephen Khan Global Executive Editor The Conversation

Getting into a taxi with a stranger at 11pm could be an awkward experience. Especially when the journey ahead is due to take one-and-a-half hours. Fortunately, when I arrived at Pisa airport last week and jumped into a car to be driven to Siena by Riccardo Chiantini, sitting next to me was Raja Chakir, a researcher in environmental economics at Paris Saclay University and a director of research at INRAE, France’s national research institute for agriculture, food and environment.

Inevitably, once we’d got beyond, “how was your flight? I hear you were delayed”, we quickly arrived at “so, what do you do and why does it bring you to a conference of the future of Europe?”. Fortunately, The Conversation provided instant common ground. Raja was a reader, but also a very content contributor. Just a couple of months ago, she had published this article with colleagues from INRAE and one of our French environment editors, Gabrielle Maréchaux.

Not only had the creation of the piece (on climate change and pesticide use in France) with Gabrielle been an extremely positive experience, but it had led further media interest in the research team’s project, including a Q&A with the national newspaper Liberation.

So, as starts to conferences go, it was pretty good to say the least. Raja and I were both heading to the Siena Conference on the Future of Europe, hosted by the think tank Vision, along with the European University Institute and the University of Siena, and the Institute for European Policy Making at Bocconi University (a Conversation member).

The event was hosted in the city and at the nearby Certosa di Pontignano and brought together leading policy makers, academics and political groups from across the continent. There was much to chew on, in particular, a report delivered earlier in the week by Mario Draghi on European competitiveness (or lack thereof).

The Draghi report set the tone for the conference, with concerns being voiced regarding how Europe can meet the challenges it faces on fronts such as security, technological development and the environment. I was in attendance as we hope to work with Vision, and it’s engaging manager Francesco Grillo, a political economist, on a future project (watch this space!). But I also found myself drafted in to chair a panel that formed part of the conference’s core mode of operation – the creation of a Concept Paper which aims to generate fresh and pragmatic ideas for the development of the EU.

Now you might reasonably think at this point, hang on, he’s in the UK – what do they have to do with the EU any more? But it was clear in Siena that the group seeks and values perspectives and research from across academia, and particularly from the UK institutions we work with. It stuck me that whether it’s in the Draghi report, or in wider discussion, there’s little mention of the UK, but there’s no doubt it is on people’s minds.

Indeed, the leader of the session I chaired, on enhancing European democracy, Sabrina Cavatorto, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Siena, shared insightful thoughts on some of the outcomes of the UK’s departure from the bloc. In particular, she spoke of how UK research had a rich tradition of engaging with policy makers and informing policy in a way she felt was sometimes lacking on the continent. It was her hope that in the post-Brexit era some of those relationships and practices could be revived.

Elsewhere there were lively discussions across the policy fields of security, growth and environment and co-operation in the Mediterranean. This latter theme even saw two-time Italian PM and former European Commission President talk in depth about his plan to establish a multi-campus “Mediterranean University” to drive the training of a new generation of high-tech workers in southern Europe, north Africa and the Middle East.

From reaching back across the English Channel and the Atlantic in the north, and around the Mediterranean in the south it is clear that solutions to European challenges will need to engage with academic partners beyond the European Union. That seems likely to present more opportunities to the research powerhouses of the UK. After almost of decade of uncertainly and awkwardness, perhaps, with a return to Horizon 2020 and amid a deep sense of the need for growth, security and innovation, UK and European research might be afforded more ways to work closely together again. Läs mer…

Maria Balinska is one of the founders of The Conversation in the United States and served as our editor there for four years. Now, she is the Executive Director of the US-UK Fulbright Commission, based in London, and overseeing the body’s work that takes post-graduates in the US and the UK across the Atlantic to teach and research in each other’s country.

They also host superb events, including an annual lecture which yesterday was held at the British Library and titled Connecting Science with People: The Power of Civic Science. It actually took the form of a discussion, jointly chaired by Fulbright fellows Melanie Brown and Clio Heslop in conversation with Mark Miodownik of UCL and Mariette DiChristina, dean of the College of Communication at Boston University and a renowned science journalist.

The format produced a stimulating discussion, highly relevant to the work we do here at The Conversation, with the panellists discussing their experiences of public engagement generally and specifically looking at the interaction between researchers and the media. One anecdote in particular seemed to capture the imagination of the audience.

Professor Miodownik recalled his experience of conducting an ambitious project that brought together researchers from multiple disciplines and thousands of public participants. The aim of the research was to work with the public to assess how food waste bags marked as compostable or biodegradable performed over time on domestic compost heaps. The researchers concluded that “home composting is not an effective or environmentally beneficial waste processing method for biodegradable or compostable packaging in the UK”.

Clear results

The results were compelling, yet Professor Miodownik recalled the aftermath of the project – the public communication aspect of it – as frustrating. Perhaps unsurprisingly companies that manufacture such bags had pushed back vigorously. Miodownik is a huge proponent of recycling, and in particular of composting food waste, but as the research entered the mill of media coverage, laden with agendas, editorial lines and “balance” the core value of the research was, to some degree, lost in communication.

This really struck a chord with me. We’re sometimes asked by those who study the media if Conversation is “really journalism”. I’ve touched on our unique style and approach before here. The implication being that hearing directly from the researchers perhaps removes a layer of journalistic screening. I always refute that on the basis that the editorial process is extremely rigorous and questioning. But it’s also clear that some journalistic traditions do not always best serve the readers. When faced with compelling research, for example, does the journalistic instinct to provide “another point of view” always enhance understanding and pave a pathway to the truth?

‘Balance’ doesn’t necessarily provide clarity

It is, of course, inevitable that research will be interpreted, regurgitated, contested in the aftermath of publication. And that seems not only important for public understanding but an essential component of how academic freedom facilitates the advancement of research. But in considering the experience of Professor Miodownik’s compostable bag crew I wondered if a further component ought to be considered when building such teams. He rightly championed its inter-disciplinarity, so perhaps the next step is to embed a communicator with the research team throughout the process, working with the researchers to build content and a strategy for publication and beyond.

This is an approach we have used successfully in the UK with our Insights series, supported directly by Research England. The Conversation Insights editors build not only news features to be launched as research goes live, but also create partnerships with other trusted media creating a launch phase for research projects that provides coverage the team can have confidence in, that also sincerely reflects nuance and uncertainty, painting a full picture for the public.

It’s one example of the collaborative approach between media and academia that as Mariette DiChristina explained last night, we’re now seeing more of on both sides of the Atlantic. Läs mer…