Emeritus Professor Chris Bryant AM is the Founder of CPAS. A parasitologist and past Dean of Science, Chris was the co-founder of the ANU Graduate Program in Scientific Communication. Graduates of this program are acknowledged in Australia and overseas as setting the standard for science communication with the general public.

Science communication - the processes by which the scientific culture and its knowledge become incorporated into the common culture.   

Reasons why science should be communicated to the public generally fall into five categories - economic, utilitarian, democratic, cultural; and social. As far as the community is concerned, science is often invisible until such time as people perceive a need to use it. It is the task of the science communicator to demonstrate to the community that it has such a need.

There is a hierarchy of science communication. Science education is the teaching of science in formal settings; in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. We are most of us familiar with this sort of teaching and I won't expand on it. The teaching of science in informal settings, however, is very different. It has two components. The first is the public understanding of science. I have defined this as:
the comprehension of scientific facts, ideas and policies, combined with a knowledge of the impact such facts, ideas and policies have on the personal, social and economic well-being of the community.

The public understanding of science most usually concerns that part of the public already committed to the philosophies of science, having been entrained by formal means. It is most often pursued by the membership of non-professional science-based societies, by attendees at public lectures and adult education courses and in the enhancement of learning opportunities, by professional scientists, for those pursuing formal education in science.

The public awareness of science is very different. Gilbert and Stocklmayer (1999), after studying the changes that interactive science centres bring about in their visitors, consider that public awareness of science and technology
is a set of attitudes, a predisposition towards science and technology, which are based on beliefs and feelings and which are manifest in a series of skills and behavioural intentions. The skills of accessing scientific and technological knowledge and a sense of ownership of that knowledge will impart a confidence to explore its ramifications. This will lead, at some time, to an understanding of key ideas/products and how they came about, to an evaluation of the status of scientific and technological knowledge and its significance for personal, social and economic life.

In real life, these convenient categories of understanding and awareness blur into one another. They are useful, however, in helping to make decisions about allocation of resources. Increasing the public understanding of science creates an intelligent, informed and skilled group of people who will act as an extremely valuable resource for society. Increasing public awareness of science is a much longer term project, but one that, if successful, can contribute enormously to social well-being as it creates a community that is confident in its possession of scientific ideas and is happy to transmit that confidence to its children.
 

The best science communicators include writers, journalists, TV and radio presenters and personalities, workers in science centres and museums, and communication officers for scientific, environmental and industrial establishments, professional associations and exhibition designers.