Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the public engagement scholarship, including the frequency of scientists’ communication activity, the factors underlying their willingness to communicate, and how they approach communication. It highlights the main tenants of Harry Collins’s and Robert Evans’s work in expertise-based communication, including the notion that scientists should communicate only from their specialist expertise, convey the nature of their expertise, explain how they adhere to the scientific ethos, and constantly evaluate how far their expertise extends. The book also provides an overview of the key takeaways given the contemporary science and society interface, and discusses ways in which researchers and practitioners of communication training may integrate these takeaways. It describes the foundations of their workshop and how it has evolved over time to adapt to training scientists to communicate in new media environments and different socio-cultural contexts.