It’s not enough for science to exist in a vacuum, so increasing efforts are made to ensure it is communicated effectively with the public and industry. A recent study from the University of Münster explores how such communication beyond the scientific community not only affects the impact of one’s science but even the act of science itself.

Indeed, scientists who effectively communicated their work to non-scientific audiences were able to gain a boost in their scientific work as well.

“As a result of their involvement in public outreach, the scientists we surveyed not only perceived an increase in their personal motivation and competence for public communication, but they also saw benefits related to networking and knowledge exchange with colleagues from other disciplines within interdisciplinary research networks,” the researchers explain.

Public communication

The benefits of science communication come in large part because in order to communicate with non-scientific audiences, the researchers need to make complex topics understandable. This requires them to broaden the specialized views they have of their work. These skills are then useful when engaging with fellow scientists from other disciplines.

What’s more, there were no real negative consequences of engaging in such community outreach other than the inevitable limits on their time and resources. Nonetheless, the researchers believe that doing public outreach is clearly not something that only benefits other people but can also have advantages for the scientists themselves.

They highlight that it’s crucial that scientists are able to find a “common language” between different disciplines so that collaboration is improved. This, in turn, further improves your public communication skills in a virtuous cycle. Indeed, many scientists said that interacting with non-expert audiences helped them to reflect on their own work in a new way.

“When boundaries come up or are even crossed in communication with other people, this opens up avenues for learning about yourself and your conversation partners,” the researchers explain.