Communicating scientific results to society – what’s the best way to approach this, what values and principles should guide us, how can the various European countries learn from each other, and what can national and European agencies do to best support an open dialogue between science and society? What are good practices, needs and gaps in regard to current policies in each country?
On September 24, 2025, the EU-funded project COALESCE organised a mutual learning exercise (MLE) on Science Communication between nine EU countries at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid to explore these questions.
As an associated project, INSPIRING ERA participated as an observer in order to share insights with our IE community as well.
Participants gathered to exchange national good practices and challenges, explore national capacity-building in SciComm, map various national science communication policies and best practices, and work together to develop recommendations for future action to overcome gaps and needs. One key insight coming out of the one-day workshop was that across the board, there seems to be a need for more alignment between national efforts and EU policy – especially in those countries that do not yet have a dedicated policy on national science communication.
The MLE was part of COALESCE’s mission to become Europe’s main point of reference for science communication in order to promote open dialogue between science and society. COALESCE is a project to co-create and establish a European Competence Centre for Science Communication funded by the European Commission. Find out more here: https://coalesceproject.eu/
Are you a science communicator? Sign up for the EU Competence Centre for Science Communication already now to gain access to a collection of knowledge, resources and tools: https://scicommcentre.eu/
COALESCE has also created the Crisis Navigator for Rapid Mobilisation of Science Communication, an interactive guide for science communicators based on the guiding question: How can science communicators contribute when a crisis emerges? Check it out here: https://scicommcentre.eu/crisisnavigator
