Science communication today takes many forms. There are classic ways such as documentaries, popular science books, and exhibitions, but also modern approaches like art expressions and social media engagement. Beyond education and entertainment, effective science communication also plays an increasingly crucial role in social, political, environmental and economic contexts — the ongoing situation regarding Covid-19 illustrates this evidently. And last but not least, science communication within the scientific community itself is essential for academic activities as a whole, significantly affecting the quality of research and education.
The increasing complexity and importance of science communication, as well as interfering phenomena such as fake news, denialism, and pseudoscience, entail a myriad of challenges. With this in mind, the SciCommHack @CERN aims to tackle these challenges by finding possible solutions for science communication. The attendees of the hackathon will create tools for transparency, intelligibility, accessibility, workflow, outreach, funding and much more, in order to make science communication more effective.
Having a long tradition in international and interdisciplinary research as well as in maintaining renowned educational and public-outreach programmes, CERN provides the perfect environment to hold a science-communication hackathon.
