Getting the balance right
As a full time postdoctoral researcher with a passion for Science Communication, I often find myself trying to balance the two in terms of time and money.
It's no secret, that I am passionate about Science Communication to the point where I would like to make a career of it. This means that, like a moth to a flame, I am naturally attracted to the organisation and participation of outreach and enterprise events.
This is great for the University and great for the scientific community, but I wonder how much of this can be legitimately attributed to my paid research?
Public engagement is a necessary part of what we do and some activity is usually contracted into a research project. But how much should we do and where do we draw the line? So should my outreach activities be solely related to my one research project, or can they relate to the wider scientific field?
I could easily spend 90% of my time working in outreach and 10% of my time in the lab but that's not what I am paid to do. At what point, does the communication of science become detrimental to the science itself?
It's no secret, that I am passionate about Science Communication to the point where I would like to make a career of it. This means that, like a moth to a flame, I am naturally attracted to the organisation and participation of outreach and enterprise events.
This is great for the University and great for the scientific community, but I wonder how much of this can be legitimately attributed to my paid research?
Public engagement is a necessary part of what we do and some activity is usually contracted into a research project. But how much should we do and where do we draw the line? So should my outreach activities be solely related to my one research project, or can they relate to the wider scientific field?
I could easily spend 90% of my time working in outreach and 10% of my time in the lab but that's not what I am paid to do. At what point, does the communication of science become detrimental to the science itself?
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Comment by Claire Ainsworth on May 8, 2009 at 8:51pm -
Great question. I guess it comes down to a judgement call on the part of the scientist doing the work. It's a great pity, though, that a scientist's outreach work receives little official recognition--it isn't counted in the RAE as part of his or her output, for example. Correcting this would go a long way towards outreach becoming seen as part of a scientist's job, rather than an optional (and in the eyes of some, frivolous) extra, IMO.
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