Studies on scientists engagement in public outreach in China: Motivations, impediments and countermeasures

摘要

Scientists' engagement in public outreach plays a crucial role in the advancement of science for public at large. China has issued a number of policies to encourage scientists to participate in communicating science with general public. Currently, national leaders are calling for scientists to get more involved in public outreach in the process of their scientific research. To communicate the latest scientific research findings to the public and improve public understanding of science is not only the respect and rewards of the taxpayers, but also necessary component for sustainable development of science community itself. Through several groups of interview with scientists at all career stages about their engagement in outreach activities, we found that scientists were often recruited into public outreach activities by government departments, enterprises and NGOs. Scientists of all types viewed outreach as a form of volunteer work that was auxiliary to their other responsibilities. This paper presented analysis on the motivators that encouraged scientists' engagement in outreach and pointed out main obstacles. The strongest motivating factor was the desire to contribute and time constraint was one of the significant barriers. Consequently, countermeasures to promote scientists' engagement were put forward including cognition improvement, mechanism enforce and platform construction.