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Abstract

iGEM teams regularly engage with the general public in explaining what synthetic biology signifies. A concept rarely explored within iGEM is the reflection on these interactions with the public, which is a shame since there is always room for improvements. Besides that, the interactions between scientists and the public are highly criticized by scientists. To improve our dialogue with the public we invited Paulien Poelarends to organize a workshop. In this workshop, we analysed conversations of previous iGEM teams. The workshop gave us new insights in how to improve our conversations with the public. After the workshop we decided to set-up a Science cafe that enabled us to apply the knowledge obtained and subsequently analyse the conversation between scientists and public again.

Though iGEM is a mostly scientific adventure, there is also an essential aspect in human outreach that is communicating synthetic biology to the public. This could be with school kids, or through video games, art festivals or scientific festivals with college students of all disciplines. New approaches to the outreach are however always welcome, since they may appeal to a larger audience or have a bigger impact, like the outreach project from Evry in 2012. They included a philosopher in their team that catalysed the discussion on ‘am I a chassis?’ Organising a Science cafe is a different approach to communicating with the public and attracting a broader audience. Also few iGEM teams have analysed, or reflected on the role of the scientist in these interactions.

Analysing conversations of iGEM members

Paulien did her master thesis (See Abstract) on last year’s iGEM teams and their way of communicating with the public and politicians. She observed them during the Discovery Festival and two debates (The Meeting of Young Minds 2011 and 2012 organized by the Rathenau Institute) and analysed the conversations with a special focus on how the iGEM members present or construct themselves in the conversations. The conversations were analysed using Discursive Psychology, a theory that defines talk as the primary arena of human action and tries to find out what actions people achieve in the conversations. The analysis of the conversations resulted in 5 identity constructions that occurred often and she therefore focused on. The identity constructions often observed are: “just normal”, having good will, a solver of global problems, careful and knowledgeable. This summer, Paulien finished her report and this gave us the opportunity to learn about and discuss the results of her study.

Workshop

The expectations of the workshop were quite high because a lot of team-members noticed before, that they were not good at communicating science with for example their parents and friends. Michiel: “In addition the team was curious about Paulien’s interpretation of last year’s human practice efforts. This was because we can learn a lot from this and we can use it to improve our human practice effort, especially the science cafe we were planning to organize in September”.
Paulien started out by a short introduction of her MSc thesis. Then we got a crash course in discursive psychology, the theory she used to analyse the conversations of iGEM teams in great detail.
Our newly acquired knowledge then was used to analyse four fragments Paulien selected from her data collection.

This is one of the fragments we analysed, recorded at the Discovery Festival.
Discovery Festival 21 (372:377)
1. iGEM        but u:hm (.2) but and that is what we are sort of like through nature trying to
2.                   control so that it in uhm well then you get Wageningen theme (.8) in
3.                   a nice way it gets done because nature does it it best
4. visitor2   haha
5. iGEM        but is just also fun to fiddle around with that
6. visitor      okay¬cool
With this sentence in the fragment: “in a nice way it gets done because nature does it it best”, synthetic biology is constructed as more natural, hereby denying that scientists only use more “difficult synthetic things”. In line 4, one of the visitors reacts with laughter. After the laughter, the iGEM member starts with: “but is just also fun to fiddle around with that”. He constructs the work they do as something that is “fun” and is like “fiddling”. By doing this, he presents the topic iGEM works on as “light and easy” and nice to do in the study of Paulien referred to as “just normal”.

The group working on the text fragments we got.

After one hour of analysing, we had a whole group discussion to discuss our findings and we put up several points on a whiteboard that in our eyes were important for interactions with society. Each team member was then given four arrows to be put at the topic they thought needed some extra attention.

Figuring out which points are most important to us by putting arrows on the white-board.

The most highlighted topics were subsequently discussed and finally we selected five issues we wanted to work on in the next months. Responsibility: We want to show (non-) scientists that we do not fiddle around and approach research responsibly. Receiver: We want to inform people on a level that is adjusted to their knowledge and interest. Context: We need to be aware of the difference in context at different occasions; perceptions change according to recent events and are thus related to both the location and time. Expectations: Find out what the public expects of a presentation and adjust the story we wish to tell accordingly. Usefulness: We want to show that we add something new to the already existing knowledge and that our work is useful.

What did we learn?

Next to the five points mentioned in the discussion we learned that: 1. Outreach activities are greatly appreciated: not only do iGEM students enjoy these excursions away from the lab, they help you step outside of your (scientific) comfort zone.
2. As an iGEM team, stay in contact with members of the previous years: they are an ENORMOUS source of experience.
3. Even though the scientific projects between teams from the same institution can differ vastly, there is always overlap in the scientific outreach activities (resources): It is better to build on the outreach efforts from previous years then start over yourself again to make improvements possible.

How to improve the conversations of iGEM over the years

When scientific outreach is continued over the years (and therefore over different teams), it can be reflected upon, thus allowing for progression of the work, rather than starting all over again. In our case, we were able to use the outreach activities of one team as study material for a communication sciences project. And this project could subsequently be used as material for a workshop next year. Planning outreach activities with teams elsewhere in the world is difficult. However, your institute’s team of the previous years are usually still close by, and could be used as local expertise, and it thereby becomes a relay baton of scientific culture that is handed down from generation to generation.

With the workshop fresh in mind, we organised a Science cafe, this would give us the opportunity to apply our new knowledge not only for the organisation itself, but also for an analysation afterwards. We invited three speakers with a different background to start up a discussion about synthetic biology. During the science cafe the three speakers presented themselves very differently. Prof. dr. Arnold Driessen presented himself as an expert on synthetic biology but he also wanted to show the usefulness of his research and synthetic biology, by showing examples of the research performed in his lab and by giving applications for that research. Dr. Dirk Stemerding presented himself as knowledgeable and as responsible, showing that he knew the needs, problems and arguments from both the public and the scientists. Pieter van Boheemen was part of the people, just a normal guy doing some experiments. His main goal was entertaining the public and he did so by telling personal stories and jokes. That Pieter van Boheemen was a man of the public was reflected during the aftermath of the discussion, when people kept approaching Pieter van Boheemen. His more personal approach did make him more accessible to the people. On the other hand it was our personal opinion that Pieter van Boheemen did not present himself as a professional, which may cause people to find him less credible then the “experts”. The key question therefore seems to be whether we as iGEM want to present ourselves as professionals and loose some of the connection with the public, or is our connection with the public more important than coming across as “experts”. Or is there a golden mean? As for the Science cafe the speakers formed a nice combination and where it started out as one-way communication it ended in a satisfying discussion where both the public and the speakers were able to speak out.