How can you make science accessible to your customers? This is a challenge that many scientists underestimate. Between technical jargon and an abundance of content, there is a great risk of losing the audience. Popularising science is therefore the essential ingredient for capturing attention and highlighting your research, experiments and other developments.
You are a veterinary surgeon, researcher, experimentation engineer or R&D engineer, and you want to communicate about your work to an agricultural target group or the general public. Your mission seems simple: to be read and understood. And yet, many scientists struggle to do just that. And yes, for the magic to work, you need an indispensable ingredient: scientific popularisation!
What is popular science?
Science popularisation is a method of transmitting knowledge. Its aim is to make science accessible to everyone. It therefore requires a great deal of pedagogy, to translate complex information into elements that can be assimilated by a non-expert audience.
A valuable tool for companies
Popularisation enables you to communicate effectively on the research, innovations and other scientific and technological advances made by your company.
Take the example of a company developing a new hygiene product for cattle. To prove its effectiveness, it conducts trials on farms. Using plain-language communication, it gets across the essential messages that underline the benefits of the product. And it does this without going into a lot of convoluted explanations.
Mistakes to avoid in your scientific communication
1. Wanting to say everything (really)
Of course, it took you some time to draw up a precise experimental protocol. You’ve obtained a great deal of data and produced some fascinating analyses. But your readers don’t need to know everything. If you discourage them with an avalanche of information that is complex for anyone who is not a doctoral student, your messages will never reach their target. And you’ll have wasted your time (and his).
It’s better to share fewer results and make sure they’re understood, than to want to say everything… and not even be read. If you really can’t stand it any longer, there’s nothing to stop you placing a QR code on your material. Interested parties can quench their thirst for knowledge by finding your scientific publication or full article, for example.
2. Not prioritising information
Now that you’ve given up trying to say everything, you need to prioritise your messages. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes: what do they need to understand? What information is (really) important? If you have to choose just 2 or 3 key messages, which should you prioritise? Thanks to this prioritisation, you can also guide your graphic designer in developing the medium.
3. Lack of clarity and a common thread
The risk, when you have your nose in a subject, is that you don’t realise that your story lacks cohesion and clarity. What makes sense to you may not make sense to an outsider.
Example: you are preparing a poster presenting the results of an experiment and its conclusions. But some of the conclusions don’t seem to be logically linked to the results. For you, it may be obvious: you have the missing link in mind, even unconsciously. For us, on the other hand, the whole thing makes no sense. While it’s not useful to say everything, there needs to be a common thread linking each piece of information.
So don’t hesitate to have your texts proofread by colleagues who have not followed your project or, even better, who are not specialists in the subject.
4. Underestimating the importance of form
We’re not saying that substance doesn’t count. Of course it does. But don’t underestimate the power of form! To be read, there’s nothing like a dynamic, fun, colourful layout, with great visuals (a few accessible computer graphics, beautiful photos…). We’ll come back to this in a little more detail below.
5. Adopting an overly formal, “so boring” tone
Forget long, convoluted sentences that sound very serious but don’t captivate your audience. Don’t hesitate to spice up your story with anecdotes, “did you know” and other fun facts.
You can even personify your talk by creating a little recurring character. Science popularisation offers you a whole new playground, so make the most of it!
6. Using technical or scientific terms – and not explaining them
It is essential to adapt the vocabulary to your target audience. While technical terms are generally well known to your agricultural targets, they may be lost on wider audiences. There are also scientific terms that can be confusing. Example: you want to talk about the digital twin you have developed to optimise the management of a livestock farm. Well, “virtual farm” will speak a little louder than “digital twin” and will help you explain this concept. After all, everyone has already played Sim’s 😉
What media can you use to communicate your scientific work?
You can use any medium to raise awareness, inform or convince your target audience. What they all have in common is that they appeal to our senses!
Computer graphics, diagrams, charts…
Computer graphics combine text, graphics and sometimes images. They are effective for summarising information in a clear, easy-to-remember way. As for diagrams and other graphics, they provide a better understanding of the subject. But to do this, they need to be kept simple: no ultra-complex graphs that can only be deciphered with a magnifying glass and a Doliprane!
Exhibition panels and interactivity
Invite your audience to discover your work at a dedicated event. Your guests will discover the main concepts to remember thanks to your exhibition panels and… you’ll be there to add to them if they have any questions! To add a fun and engaging dimension, you can also incorporate demonstrations, simulations or educational games.
If your project allows, you can even appeal to the public’s other senses: hearing, by making headphones available; touch, with materials or textures to explore; smell, with samples to guess; taste, with a blind tasting…
Videos and motion design
Video and motion design are great tools for helping your audience visualise experiments and phenomena. Youtubers who specialise in popularising science have understood this!
Podcasts
The audio format can be adapted to popularising science, provided that the speakers are well prepared. The podcast host can make it easier to explain things in layman’s terms by prompting or rephrasing: “can you explain what… means”, “if I understand correctly, ….”, etc. You need to be particularly clear, as there are no visuals to support what you are saying.
Virtual reality headset
Why not offer an immersive experience using a virtual reality headset? Farm or factory visits, scientific experiments… here again, the possibilities are endless.
So it’s true that popularising science is a job that requires a number of skills: editorial strategy, writing, graphics, editing, etc. To find all these skills, don’t hesitate to get the right support. In particular, you can call on a communications agency with a scientific background(ours, for example!).