by degett
27. April 2010 10:28
When the European Council of Ministers met in Lisbon in the year 2000 and signed up for the vision of “making Europe the most competitive knowledge based economy in the world by 2010”, it was not only a question of increasing research and education budgets, improving international collaboration, streamlining the patent laws and support knowledge-based enterprises. In my view the most important task was to create a culture of public interest in science and technology in Europe, if the ambitious plan was to have any chance of success.
Many reasons have been given why the Lisbon vision from the year 2000 has not been as successful as expected. Examples are lack of national ownership, too diverse targets of the strategy and of course the economic crisis. In the recent evaluation of the Lisbon Strategy by the European Commission (EC) it is expressed that: “Communication has been an Achilles’ heel of the Strategy. As a consequence, awareness and citizens’ involvement in and public support for the objectives of the Strategy remained weak at EU level and at national level it was not always sufficiently coordinated”.
No major change in the investment of science and technology can be made without public support. The public needs to be informed how and why their taxes are being spent, and political decisions are sensitive to public opinion. I asked Michel Claessens, deputy head of the Communication Unit in DG Research at the EC, and he agreed “it is quite clear that communication of science plays a role, as an effective way to disseminate results in society, to improve science literacy, to raise public debates, to anticipate the future, etc”. But how can the EC or the National Governments in Europe improve the understanding of science and promote the knowledge society without being seen as a propaganda machine that will alienate the free press and the science journalists in particular?
I believe that at the European level a great deal has already been done, but there is room for improvement. I think the free press should remain free but further dialogue between science and the media should be supported. Furthermore, national strategies for strengthening the public media’s coverage of science should be encouraged as well as consensus conferences for dialogue with the public.
Communicating science to the public through the media is not a replacement for improving the educational level of the European population; the media can only inform and create debate; real skills and operational knowledge still has to be acquired through the education system. But there are many reasons why the communication of science should be improved.
Jens Degett_ La comunicación y la sociedad basada en el conocimiento.pdf (47.42 kb)
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