ADVOCATING FOR SCIENCE: A SUMMARY OF KEY SKILLS LEARNED THROUGH A SERIES OF WORKSHOPS

Developing tools and skills for science advocacy are critical for postdocs looking to foster change in their institutions, in academia, or in society at large. The “Advocating for Science” symposium and workshop was co-organized in Boston in September 2016 as a joint venture between the Future of Research, Academics for the Future of Science, and the MIT Graduate Student Council, to help junior scientists learn skills for advocacy. In the workshop component of the meeting, participants learned about four different areas for advocacy: 1) Developing a Broad Communications Strategy (discussing an overall strategy for communicating with Ray Howell of Howell Communications); 2) How to Collect Data Effectively (focusing on effective survey design with Philip Brenner, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UMass Boston); 3) How to Communicate Your Message (focusing in particular on communication with the press, with David Cameron, Director of Media Relations, Harvard Public Affairs and Communications and Karen Weintraub, independent health/science journalist); and, 4) Effective Visual Communication (infographic design with Christine Oslowski, communications specialist for AsisChem and Thermo Fisher). In this poster we present summaries of what the workshop participants learned and the key skills that were highlighted for each component. We also present these skills in the context of topics that were not directly addressed by workshops at the meeting, but that are important for advocacy, including organizational management, leadership and negotiation.