Equity in science communication and dissemination
Communication is the cornerstone of scientific activities. Science
communication refers to active engagement in disseminating knowledge to
various stakeholders including scientists, industry, policy makers, and
general public. Among scientists, science is communicated and
disseminated mainly through research publications, seminars, and
conferences. Equitable access to the latest developments in the field is
a major pre-requisite of successful science careers. Equity in science
communication encompasses inclusive activities reaching to a wide range
of participants with different cultural identities and life experiences
(Canfield et al., 2020). Current practices require critical evaluation
to move towards inclusive science communication practices (Amaro &
Mulholland, 2020; Cosgriff, Ebner, & Celi, 2020; Dawson, 2014; Polk &
Diver, 2020). Traditionally, seminars and conferences are localised to
institutions and the publications are behind pay walls significantly
diminishing accessibility. However, during the COVID-19 pandemics,
traditional means of science communication were transformed overnight
providing significantly more equitable access to the public funded
research output.
COVID-19 has revolutionised and democratised publication of new
scientific findings with the main objective of solving an immediate
health challenge affecting the humankind (Kupferschmidt, 2020). Of note,
individual success and corporate profits were completely removed as a
factor in science communication. This is evident in the recognition of
the need and international agreements to share the interim result,
genome sequences, molecular simulations, and findings freely and quickly
(Amaro & Mulholland, 2020; Wellcome Trust UK). According to the
guidelines, scientists agreed to rapidly and widely share interim and
final results with scientific community, make the findings rapidly
available on preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, and
psyarxiv and publish open access. Crucially, open science framework was
promoted to ensure equity and reproducibility (Amaro & Mulholland,
2020; Korbel & Stegle, 2020; Wellcome Trust UK). Additionally, several
collaborative platforms such as European COVID-19 Data Portal,
Crowdfight COVID-19, or data against COVID-19 were developed to connect
experts from different fields in a truly cross-disciplinary way. Timely
and honest science communication to policy makers and the general public
is another learning lesson from the COVID-19. The importance of an open
dialogue between the scientific community and the policy makers, often
neglected in graduate schools, is also being placed center stage (Berger
et al., 2019; Robert et al., 2020).