Written evidence submitted by the British Pharmacological Society (COM0021)

Introduction

1.     The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) is a charity with a mission to promote and advance the whole spectrum of pharmacology. The Society leads the way in the research and application of pharmacology around the world, through our peer-reviewed journals, scientific meetings and educational initiatives. We represent and cover all aspects of pharmacology with over 3,500 members from more than 60 countries worldwide working in academia, industry, regulatory agencies and the health services.

2.     Public awareness and engagement are included in the Society’s strategic objectives. We aim to increase public awareness and engagement through enhanced outreach, media and public engagement activities, which are designed and developed to explain the value of pharmacology in the modern world. The Society welcomes the opportunity to respond to the inquiry on Science communication, namely how the Government, scientists, the media and others encourage and facilitate public awareness of – and engagement in – science, and has consulted its members to seek their views. Our submission centres on the role of the Society and our members in raising public awareness of science. We have referenced a range of activities and strategies that target different audiences.

3.     We note that one question refers to education and enrichment with a careers focus. As discussed by Professor Louise Archer and colleagues in their ASPIRES report[1], improving equality of access to ‘science capital’[2] is a major part of the solution to improving access to and participation in STEM careers. Public engagement and communication can be part of this, but access to and participation in STEM is a distinct challenge that would benefit from continued focused consideration.

The trends in attitudes to science, and public engagement with science 

4.     In 2013, the British Pharmacological Society conducted in-depth research to gauge members’ opinions about the Society’s activities. 85% of participants agreed that the Society should invest more effort into raising awareness of pharmacology with external audiences, including with the general public. A smaller survey in 2015 showed that a large majority of respondents (80–82%) reported that they personally would like to be more actively involved in public engagement with the value of pharmacology or science more broadly.

5.     Among members interested in engagement activity, there was an appetite for more opportunities, resources or guidance, fewer work commitments and more funding in order to enable their involvement. Additionally, 40% of respondents had participated in training in the last 2–5 years with the intention of improving their engagement with external audiences and 70% expressed interest in such training in the future.

The balance of effort needed to increase public engagement in science by 'new audiences' and by the 'already interested'

6.     There is a particular challenge in engaging disadvantaged/under-represented communities, and young people who lack science capital. The Society would welcome efforts to increase public engagement that specifically target these groups.

7.     Public engagement efforts should aim to support equality by raising the profile of a diverse range of role models and explicitly tackling stereotypes[3]. However, this need extends past communication to challenging social norms, and supporting equality in careers advice and opportunities.

8.     The Society works on a range of public engagement and outreach activities. For reasons of access and resource, the bulk of our activity is focused on ‘already interested’ audiences – that is, through science events and festivals. For example in 2015, the Society supported events at Brighton Science Festival, Edinburgh Science Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival, Manchester Science Festival, London Science Festival Pint of Science, Barts and Queen Mary Science Festival, Biology week at the Dana Centre, Cambridge Big Biology day, and the Big Bang Fair. The Society partnered with the Biochemical Society to develop and run ‘Medicine Makers’. This is a hands-on activity for school children and young adults to demonstrate using simple interactive models, how a painkiller binds to the receptor and relieves pain. The Society also awarded four outreach grants on a range of topics including supporting the ‘I’m a Scientist, get me out of here’ pharmacology zone.

9.     The Society has a tremendous resource in our members, and we are working to expand our reach through investing in and supporting them. The Society and the Biochemical Society are working on turning the Medicine Makers activity into a user-friendly resource pack for volunteers and teachers. This sees the Society becoming more member support focused and also being less dependent on staff resources in office. This toolkit will be trialled out at the Imperial Science Festival this year with volunteer members.  We continue to offer outreach grants to both members and non-members in order to support innovative pharmacology outreach and public engagement activities. We are currently piloting a ‘Pharmacology Champions’ scheme which aims to support the development of a range of new voices in science communication.

Any further steps needed by the media and broadcasters to improve the quality, accessibility and balance of their science coverage; and science coverage in broadcasters' programme-making. The strategies and actions being taken by Government to foster high quality reporting of science in the media.

10. The Science Media Centre (SMC) fulfils an immensely valuable and unique role in bringing together scientists and the media. In particular, it has expanded the network of experts available to provide advice and comments to journalists. The British Pharmacological Society provides financial support to the Science Media Centre, and would welcome wider appreciation for the SMC’s role as a hub for science communication.

11. The Society regularly works with the SMC to support the media with access to a diverse range of experts and organisations than the current “usual suspects”. Understandably, journalists face time constraints and are inclined to contact a trusted or well-known source e.g. a widely-known cancer organisation for a comment on a cancer story. However, this bias towards existing experts may exclude possibly better-informed but less obvious sources that can provide a better context for a particular element of research news. The Society would advise strategies that increase awareness of the SMC as a resource.

The communications strategies being taken to encourage young people to study STEM subjects in higher and further education, and to encourage those people towards STEM careers

12. As noted in paragraph 3, the solution to providing equal access to and participation in STEM careers runs more deeply than a need for effective communication. In 2013/4 this issue was targeted by high level Government activity, which developed into the Your Life campaign[4]. The Society would welcome the opportunity to work more closely with this communications campaign, but would also welcome a more strategic integration with the organisations that are working to deliver educational enrichment and careers support e.g. STEMNET, British Science Association, EngineeringUK. We also note that much of this is delivered by STEM professionals in addition to their paid roles. The Society would welcome moves that fully recognise non-research activities (including nurturing and training the next generation) into the measures of success for STEM careers.

13. The Society has used different forms of social media to encourage young people to become more engaged with science. For example, a successful series of YouTube videos called “How do drugs work” featuring the Society’s younger members was produced to encourage public engagement with science. This strategy should also be employed by the media, those involved in education, and others. Amusing and informative videos on YouTube and images on Flickr, Instagram or other social media are very powerful for the younger age groups (although this does not mean neglecting older, more established media as these still have an important role to play).

The extent to which public dialogue and consultation is being effectively used by Government in science and technology areas of policy-making. The strategies and actions being taken by Government to foster public engagement and trust of science more widely.

13. The Society regularly engages[5] in policy consultations using the expertise of our members and staff. We actively raise awareness of such opportunities through our website, newsletters, committees and known expert networks. However, we have noted that a barrier to engagement for some members is a feeling that ‘it does not make a difference’. We believe that if the value of this form of engagement was more effectively communicated we may access a wider range of voices through our membership. We are actively reviewing how the Society may do this, and would welcome the chance to develop materials in collaboration with other organisations and government. We would be interested to know if, in addition to feeding into consultations and inquiries at the beginning, there would be opportunities for partnership in examining and challenging final recommendations of such reports.

14. The Society would like to see the government engaging a wider audience in consultations and dialogue about STEM topics. There is an impression that consultations and inquiries tend to only engage people who are already interested, or who are perceived as experts. There have been good examples of consultations that have involved a wider audience, e.g. the consultation over mitochondrial donation (“three-parent babies”), but more could be done to engage harder-to-reach audiences: both with a view to improving the quality of evidence gathered, and also as a way to engage the public in science.

15. The Government could consider innovative ways of reaching hard-to-reach communities/ audiences by e.g. arranging regular road shows visiting schools, village halls and other similar places to reach the wider public and foster trust of science more broadly.

April 2016