Science communication

How Do Researchers Engage in Academic Crowdfunding in Japan?

2019-01-10 Euan McKay

Recently, Japanese researchers have begun engaging in academic crowdfunding more regularly. Academic crowdfunding may facilitate public engagement in science. However, the process of academic crowdfunding in Japan has not been well examined. In this study, we investigated how Japanese researchers approached the general public for financial support using academic crowdfunding. We found that 80% of the Japanese researchers surveyed considered that conveying the interest of the research was most important when calling for financial support from the general public. However,…

When science and journalism interactions cross language and socio-cultural boundaries

2018-11-07 Euan McKay

Science communication literature suggests that the relationship between science and journalism has changed over time. Earlier literature found that there is a distance between the two cultures as scientists preferred to talk with their colleagues more than with journalists. Later findings based on surveys conducted in five countries showed that the separation was not as large as suggested because scientists were interacting with journalists much smoothly and frequently than previously thought. More recently, science has become more oriented towards media as expressed in the term ‘medialization’…

Science created by crowds: a case study of science crowdfunding in Japan

2018-08-30 Euan McKay

“Science crowdfunding” is a research funding system in which members of the public make small financial contributions towards a research project via the Internet. We compared the more common research process involving public research funding with science crowdfunding. In the former, academic-peer communities review the research carried out whereas the Crowd Community, an aggregation of backers, carries out this function in the latter. In this paper, we propose that science crowdfunding can be successfully used to generate “crowd-supported science” by…

Euan McKay

Diversity, science communication, history

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Category: Science communication