Science Communication Accelerator - scicomX (scicomm, social media, and digital science marketing)

What works and what does not work in science communication? In this episode Prof. Baruch Fischhoff joins the scicomX Podcast. Baruch is Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and widely considered as one of the god fathers of the science of science communication. We talked about what types of science communication exist, and what the science tells us what we should strive for if we...

With the rise of social media, universities and research organizations have immense potential at their fingertips to build visibility and brand. However, too often the vast potential that new social media channels offer is not taken advantage of and hence lost. To harness the potential of social media, communication departments need to become scientific media agencies. What does that mean? While a...

Universities and research organizations are content gold mines, because they are filled with intelligent people who create knowledge that may help tackle our societal challenges. In this episode I will introduce you to the five steps of efficient content creation (Drilling, Accessing, loading, processing, delivery) and you will be introduced to what skills are needed in the communication departmen...

This episode is the recording of a Fireside chat organized by the European Research Council. Special thanks to Tony Lockett and his team for having me.  We covered quite some topics during the discussion. Please find the topics below. Thanks for tuning in :-).  - Podcasting (05:00) - Are research and science good topics for social media (07:37) - How to build well functioning science com...

Dr. Kiki is an American neurophysiologist and the go to science communicator when it comes to video making. Originally starting out with a PhD in "bird brains" she soon moved to be a science communicator hosting the "This week in science" live and podcast format, running her own boutique video production company as well as serving as vice President of Public Relations at for the non-for-profit Sci...

Think about your message, goal, and audience . You’re not building it for you, but for your audience! This is the first tip that you will get from Liesbeth Smit – the godmother of researcher websites – when you listen to this podcast episode. Furthermore, you will learn what questions you should answer when thinking about creating your webpage, and there will be a substantial number of value bombs...

In this podcast I talk often how social media can be used to communicate science. But there is another very prominent way to get your research out there and that are the traditional news media. In this podcast I talk to journalist Andrea Tiltnes how you can get newspapers to take up your research. This section is divided into two parts. In the first paper we talk about what makes a good article in...

In this episode I try something new. It is called “ask scicomX”. This podcast is for you and to empower the science communication space, by providing meaningful insights on how to do science communication with digital media. I think the best thinks I can make content about is your specific questions. So I asked some people in the scicomX audience to send in audio files with science communication r...

In most cases, research organizations have a lot of potential for science communication that they do not utilize a lot. In this podcast I tackle this issue with my guest Johanna Kollmann, who works at ZEIT Verlag in Hamburg, Germany where she frequently consults universities and research organizations on how to level up their communication. We talk about how small and large organizations can use t...

Instagram is one of the largest social media networks of our time. While Twitter is known to be one of the prime networks used by researchers, more and more are migrating to or also starting to creating content on Instagram. Hence, I took the time to sit down with Hannah Oldenburg who runs an organizational Instagram Account for the Öko Institute in Berlin and walk me through how they set it up an...

Making design sexy. That is the mission of today`s guest. Liesbeth Smith dropped out of her PhD program to start her own design company and to make science sexy.  On the web our science content competes with all other beautifully designed content. So, in order to stand a chance, Liesbeth brings seven hands-on tips to this episode on how you can increase the quality and attractiveness of your...

In this episode I am joined by Amy Aines. Amy supports researchers to be more effective when talking about their science and she co-wrote the known scicomm book “Championing Science”. If you listen to this episode, you will get to hear seven practical tips on how to get your points across and on the way to that also become a better public speaker. The seven points are: Before you speak Forget to s...

Do you have a question on how to do science communication? If yes, this is your chance to get it answered. Please record it (for example with your smartphone) and send it to julius@scicomx.com, if you want to have it answered in the podcast. I am already psyched to receive it 😊. In this episode you will hear 8 tracks that I stripped from videos on hands on strategies that I produced and shared on...

The European Research Council (ERC) is one of the largest funders of scientific research in Europe - reason enough to sit down with it’s head of communications Tony Locket. In this episode you will learn what the ERC is, how it operates and how it supports grantees and beyond to do science communication. Furthermore, Tony shared his insights on current trends in science communication and how it is...

For today’s episode I talked to Rebecca Winkels - the Director of Communications and Strategy at Wissenschaft im Dialog. What are current social media trends in science communication and academia? By the end of the episode, you will know about them 😊. During our talk, Rebecca mentioned a book from Pia Lamberty. It is called "Fake Facts" (German only) and you can check it out here: https://www.ama...

Don’t Look Up made waves. A lot of waves. While Leonardo DiCaprio states that “In a nutshell, (the film is) an analogy of modern-day culture and our inability to hear and listen to scientific truth”, it also showcases a lot of challenges that scientists are exposed to in modern day culture when it comes to science communication. Together with Mark Bayer, I unpack what went wrong with science commu...

Be among the first ones to join the scicomX Discord Server: https://discord.gg/BVNCXXTScZ  A great way to provide in depth value to your audience is podcasting. Podcasts allow you to go deep and to really empower your audience with details, knowledge, and arguments in a way that tweets and Instagram posts can’t. If you want to start a podcast yourself, then this episode is four you. In this episod...

During the pandemic a lot of things changed. Also a lot of formats that were offline were moved online and now as the the pandemic will (hopefully) be soon over, often the question arises what to do with these formats. Moving them back to offline? But how to do this without loosing the following built up online? In this episode of the scicomX Podcast I talked to Franziska Sattler who as been worki...

Who are you? This question I was asked by Amber O'Brien about two months ago. She said: "It's really helpful to listen to your podcast episodes, and the energy you bring to it, but I feel I don't even know who you are and why you do this podcast". And since I am not really good at overthinking things a lot, I just invited Amber to be the host of this episode and interview me about what drives me,...

Science communication is severely hampered because the incentive system  in research organizations and universities is too often based solely on  the number of published papers and citations. A key to encourage science communication could therefore be to increase appreciation for science  communication and anchor it in the academic incentive system. In this  episode, I discuss...

From tomorrow on the scicomX Podcast will publish new episodes every OTHER Tuesday. Look below for finding out why. For this episode I try something new. I took 10 of my YouTube videos and merged them into one podcast episode that now contains hot takes on being judged, the imposter syndrome, but also that attention is key and how you craft your first digital science communication strategy. Do you...

„When engaging the disengaged, what I mean is engaging the majority“. This is how today’s guest Haydon describes his work as a science communicator in the earth sciences field. Who are the disengaged and how can we catch their attention? If you are interested in answers to these questions, then this episode is for you. You can find Haydon on Instagram, Linkedin, and through his webpage. In the epi...

Storytelling is an ancient art form and can be described as the social an cultural activity of sharing stories to audiences. Using storytelling elements in presenting the research process and research results can make research more accessible and give a human face to science. In order to learn more about science communication storytelling I invited Josh Ettinger to the scicomX Podcast. Josh is a P...

There are four formats how to communicate information: written, audio, video, and visualizations. In this episode I look together with Martins Zaumanis at how researchers and organizations can create appealing visualizations that are easy to understand and that attract attention. Check out the second part of the podcast to get some hands-on tips. Here Martins shares 8 steps for you to step up your...

While TIKTOK still has a reputation of being a teenage dancing app it has evolved substantially over the last couple of years. In 2020 it surpassed two billion downloads and it also recently surpassed YouTube in viewing time per user. It is high time to look at TIKTOK. In order to learn about TIKTOK, I invited Prof. Andy Miah to the podcast. Andy has a chair in Science Communication and Future Med...