science communication studies

It is difficult to believe, but when Gustav Holmberg, Malin Sandström and I organised a session on science communication and social web media at the 10th conference of The International Network on Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST-10) two years ago, ours was the only session which discussed social web media (especially blogging) in relation to […]

I just read a short article by Marion Maria Ruisinger (curator of the medical collections at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) in the UMAC Journal — and was struck by the fact that she declares, without much ado, that “three-dimensional objects … have an immense potential for the communication of science”. I agree, intuitively. I’ve used the same argument in applications for […]

We have just started a search for 1-2 positions at the level of Associate Professor (alternatively Assistant Professor). As readers of this blog probably knows, Medical Museion is an integrated research and museum unit for promoting medical science communication based on the material and visual medical heritage. The research profile is centered around the contemporary history of […]

Just saw the early spring Monday seminar program at UCL’s STS department. I like the nice British analytical touch to it. Much more interesting than the usual fashionable Latouresque ANTsemiotics and other STS’ese sociolects. For example: Jeremy Howick, ‘When can we trust the experts? Defending the Evidence Based Medicine stance’, 25 January David Healy, ‘They used to […]

People interested in medical science communication in museums are well advised to broaden their vision to other domains of science communication studies and practices. There is much to be learned from science communication studies dealing with a wide array of sciences through a variety of media. One forum for such learning from others is the series […]

I’ve always wondered why bioethics and research ethics are routinely referred to as obligatory passage points in most biomedical and life science PhD programmes — and why science communication is more rarely emphasised in postgraduate training. Does this emphasis on ethics and the corresponding  lack of attention to science communication reflect a deeply felt need from the side […]

In late March, Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard (which several of us here at Medical Museion met when she gave a seminar here a couple of years ago and who is now working at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge) is organising a meeting of great relevance for anyone interested in biomedicine on display, whether in […]

The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–18 September, 2010. This year’s conference focuses on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in medical science and technology. The image of medicine that emerges from most museum […]

Three months ago, Nature Biotechnology (27: 514-18, 2009) published a commentary titled ‘Science Communication reconsidered’, a topic we are of course very interested in here at MedMus. I believe the commentary is still worth a comment, because it was written by 24 (sic!) more or less well known ‘experts’ in science communication, including Matt (“framing science”) Nisbett. The co-authored commentary — which […]

A few weeks ago I attended the Science Online London 2009 conference – a conference on science communication in the new era of “the Web”. As they wrote on the conference homepage: The Web is rapidly changing the communication, practice and culture of science. Science online London 2009 will explore the latest trends in science […]

I was supposed to give a presentation at the one-day meeting ‘Stories Between Art and Science’ in Oporto, Portugal, next week but had to decline because I’m on paternal leave with my youngest daughter in September and October. Anyway, the programme has just been distributed and it looks tantalising. Speakers include: * Michael Punt: Provisional […]

The program for the Artefacts meeting at Science Museum, 20-22 September, has been finalised. It looks great! Medical Museion’s former senior curator Søren Bak-Jensen (now at the Copenhagen City Museum) will present some of the ideas behind the current exhibition ‘Split+Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine’. Here is the whole list of papers for the meeting: Bruce […]