IPN and CAU welcome new chemistry education professor focusing on science communication

The Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) and Kiel University (CAU) are proud to announce a recent addition to their professorial staff: Prof. Dr. Friederike Hendriks, in taking up their professorship of chemistry education with a special focus on science communication, will be enriching Kiel’s science scene with her research on scicom, trust in science, and public engagement in scientific work.

Before coming to Kiel, Prof. Dr. Hendriks headed the interdisciplinary Junior Research Group “fourC – Communicating Scientists: Challenges, Competencies, Contexts” at Technische Universität Braunschweig, which used theories and methods from psychology and communication studies to conduct research on scientists as actors in science communication. Among the group’s achievements is the development and evaluation of evidence-based training programs to help early career scientists prepare for the task of science communication and for engaging a range of target groups.

After completing her degree, and her doctorate in psychology, at the University of Münster, Prof. Dr. Hendriks worked in a number of roles, including one at the IPN in Kiel, before taking the lead researcher position in the Braunschweig research group.

At the IPN, Prof. Dr. Hendriks is hoping to focus, alongside her team, on research around science communication and extra-curricular learning. One of her key research interests with us will be in how scientific and academic organizations conceive of and practice science communication, exploring the experiences both of researchers and of those working in the emerging science communicator profession. She and Prof. Dr. Ilka Parchmann are co-leads of a DFG (German Research Foundation) network on science outreach in major research projects.

Another focal area of Prof. Dr. Hendriks’ work will be public perceptions of science. She will study the conditions under which people consider researchers to be trustworthy and examine the impact of public engagement in areas such as citizen science on the degree of trust people place in science. Alongside conducting experimental studies, her team will work closely with the Kiel Science Communication Network (KielSCN).

We asked Prof. Dr. Hendriks to tell us some more about her research, her plans, and her views on scicom.

IPN: What is it that fascinates you personally about science communication, and why it is more vital now than it has ever been?

Prof. Dr. Hendriks: I’ve found having science communication as a research topic to be a great motivator. It’s your job to ask questions of extremely high societal relevance, to ask how we, mostly on the basis of our own education in school, handle issues that don’t have any straightforward answers, in contexts like health, nutrition, and sustainability.

We discovered quite recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, how crucial it is for people not just to be able to use scientific knowledge to engage with such issues, but also to be able fundamentally to trust that scientific findings can serve them for orientation. Especially when it comes to tackling major socioscientific problems such as climate change and the use of AI in medicine or education, a foundational understanding of science is just as important as the ability to trust in that science.

To support this understanding of and trust in science as well as possible, we need evidence-based, responsible science communication that seeks to establish how communicators can put scientific findings across in the best possible way to audiences outside the scientific community. This is why science communication, in my view, is always closely interlinked with science education.

IPN: Trust in science is one of your chief research interests. Which factors do you think have the strongest influence on whether or not people trust researchers?

Prof. Dr. Hendriks: It’s important to distinguish between trust in science as an attitude, as major surveys often seek to ascertain – that is, a positive general view of scientific research and its findings – and a critical “epistemic trust” that adapts to different situations. We have been able to demonstrate that people are able, on the spur of the moment, to infer from small details in a piece of communication, such as a press release, whether or not an expert possesses expertise, integrity, and goodwill, traits that, taken together, comprise somebody’s trustworthiness. As an example, people attribute greater trustworthiness to a scientist when she adheres to rigorous standards, and [she is] particularly considered [to have] greater integrity and goodwill when she corrects errors, is open about uncertainty, or clearly signals the limits of her knowledge. By contrast, she’ll attract lower levels of trust if it’s apparent that financial interests are involved.

Findings like these have implications for schools. [We need to ask ourselves] how we can support students in schools in using their understanding of science to make nuanced, informed judgments on trust. I see a lot of connections to the IPN’s research here.

IPN: What is the role of science communication for researchers today? Has the work of a scientist changed?

Prof. Dr. Hendriks: Yes, I think so. Science communication was in fact always something scientists did alongside their actual research, but in recent years, funders have begun to require [researchers] to incorporate science communication more prominently into their work; for example, [they might mention it] as a communication strategy in their project funding application. And of course, we associate science communication immediately with researchers who have a lot of visibility in the media.

Sometimes this puts people under pressure, because they have to fit a new task into a job that is already very varied. This is why, when we were developing science communication training, we considered it so important to not just teach basic skills (what’s the core message, how do I put it in a few punchy words, and how do I get my audience interested in it?), but also to help people reflect (when might I find myself going beyond the limits of my knowledge, and when am I crossing the boundary between a scientific and a political rationale for a point of view?) and, alongside this, to support them in finding their own identity as a science communicator (am I more suited to a didactic role, or do I want to show my political standpoint as well? Where can I, personally, have the greatest impact? What are the potential risks [of my choices]?). Everyone can and should discover this identity in this context. I think, then, that researchers should arrive at their own personal, fundamental outlook on science communication, so they can access their skills when required and make best use of their strengths. Sometimes this might mean making the conscious choice to decline a [media] request.

I think, then, that researchers should arrive at their own personal, fundamental outlook on science communication, so they can access their skills when required and make best use of their strengths. Sometimes this might mean making the conscious choice to decline a [media] request.

IPN: Some of your work revolves around citizen science and participatory research. What opportunities do you think these fields hold for science and society?

Prof. Dr. Hendriks: First, science is something that needs lots of people to get involved, particularly when scientists need to collect or analyze large amounts of data, or when there’s no other way to access a data basis or a knowledge base. And second, participatory research empowers everyone who has direct contact with its findings, in the medical treatment of patients, for example, or in the design and management of urban neighborhoods.

This said, we can assume that [citizen] participation also leads to a need for new conversations, at a number of levels, around trust: [this process] calls existing power relations and hierarchies into question, as well as helping dislodge stereotypical ideas of how science works (“it only happens in the lab,” “it’s all about abstract topics”). We ran a representative online survey to study how the broader public perceives citizen science. One of its findings was that people thought citizen science can be useful to society, but doubted its scientific legitimacy. In terms of science communication, then, it’s important to not talk about citizen science projects as being solely about improving the common good, but to show how they can generate valuable knowledge.

IPN: What are the issues and projects that you want to push ahead with especially in the years to come at the IPN and at CAU?

Prof. Dr. Hendriks: First of all, I’m really looking forward to working with my brilliant colleagues from various [scientific] subjects, both those focusing on the knowledge and those working on education. I think that chemistry in particular, and its contexts, are exciting subjects for science communication. For instance, chemistry has a lot to contribute in the climate change and sustainability spaces; in Kiel, to name some examples, there’s work going on on issues such as ocean acidification and battery research. Chemistry also provides lots of inspiration as far as science communication goes, like the opportunity to create something original and new, but also a diverse range of concepts and terminologies, which presents a challenge to communicators.

Another dominant theme in the years ahead will certainly be creating more systematic structures for research into scicom and research alongside science outreach, to form the basis for evidence-based practice in the field, which, of course, will also be an ideal springboard for future projects in research and in the practical scicom field.