Ill communication

Originally for Times Higher Education

Normally, the path through science academia is reasonably linear (though never smooth): get a grant, do the research, write the paper, rinse & repeat. And we scientists are judged on two axes: volume of cash in and quality (whatever that means) of papers out. Before you start your angry letters to the editor, I know there is more to academic life than this (which is kind of the point of the article).

In the time I have been working as a research-orientated science academic for the last 14 years (20 if you count my PhD and Postdoc time), career progression and job retention have been the my major considerations in how I spend my time at work. Rightly or wrongly, I took the view that in order to do the science I love, I had to focus my efforts to retain my job. I put this down to a high level of job uncertainty throughout my academic career: shaped by multiple academic staff redundancies during my PhD, followed by the impact of the 2007 financial crash. I also started my lab at the same time as my wife started back at work after parental leave for our first child, which meant I didn’t have the ‘luxury’ of endless days in the lab – I had to be at the nursery door every day for 6 pm or suffer punitive financial consequences (£1 for every minute we were late).

However, in the past 18 months, I have had something of a rethink about how I spend my time. When my lab shut in March 2020, I found myself looking into the void. One of the biggest questions was self-identity, if I didn’t have experiments to do, was I still a scientist? I decided to fill this space by writing a book (INFECTIOUS, available from all good stockists).

Now you may think that is a long-winded and self-indulgent way to try and get a bit of extra publicity, and it is. But there’s a more important point too – what value do we as a community place on activity outside the 2D grants-papers space? There are so many other activities, which contribute and shape our universities – administration, addressing diversity, fixing research culture, teaching, pastoral care, outreach and science communications. Most of which can pass unrecognised.

In the context of writing a book for the wider public, I am focussing on the value of science communication, but many of the same considerations apply. During the COVID pandemic, we’ve seen a huge surge in interest in science; particularly infection and all things related. We’ve also seen many scientists become household names – often to their detriment, the physical assault on Chris Witty being the most prominent. But many others have experienced online abuse for making seemingly uncontroversial statements that viruses exist, they can cause disease and that anti-viral vaccines prevent infections.

As well as online abuse, there are other costs to participating in science communication, the main one is time. Time is fleeting, especially so in the last 18 months when the systems that many of us relied upon for support, particularly childcare stopped abruptly. And every engagement took time: be it a quick interview with a journalist, writing an article about upcoming popular science best seller, arguing with trolls on twitter who apparently have learnt more in the last month about viruses than you have in 20 years of study.

It’s not immediately clear what career benefit getting involved in science communication has for the individuals. There’s no option for ‘extended Twitter argument’ as a REF returnable submission. Even Professor Brian Cox’s The Planets with its viewing figures of 3 million can’t be included.

The ideal solution would be a broader system of recognition, so that all of our contributions as academics are recognised. I am not first and won’t be the last to saying there should be a fairer system that value academics in the round. Hopefully at some point the message will dribble through, some institutions for example the University of Glasgow and the University of Utrecht are leading the way in this area, with funders such as Wellcome trying to address research culture.

However, change takes time and is most likely going to be evolution not revolution. In the absence of a holistic approach to academia, it is perhaps better to think about the situation differently. There is after all more to life than REF, Impact and climbing up, up, up the career Ziggurat lickety split.

This is where thinking in terms of constructive alignment can be useful: getting the most out of the activities we do that aren’t. In the case of science communication, there are multiple benefits that can also help with that elusive academic career. First and foremost for me, it is fun. It is very easy to get bogged down in the cycle, dwelling too long on the rejections and then worrying that each success is only fleeting; science communication can be lighter and more enjoyable. Secondly it engages different parts of the brain to more analytical research, opening a very different outlet for creativity than other parts of my job. Hopefully complementing them to some degree. Working more closely with book and magazine editors has made me more confident about having direct conversations with journal editors. It has led me to pitch directly to journals, finding out if the work I have done is a good fit, rather than firing articles off blindly. It has also opened up opportunities to speak to different audiences and feel like I am putting the knowledge I have to a broader use. Finally, in a topsy-turvy year it gave me structure.

So where does this leave me? With the slow return to normality in the lab do I throw myself headlong back into the grant/paper loop? Or do I continue to do more of the things I enjoy and accept there maybe impact on my career, whatever that means? Honestly I still don’t know.