Tag Archives: Simon Fraser University

2018 Canadian Science Policy Conference (Nov. 7 – 9, 2018) highlights and Council of Canadian Academies: a communications job, a report, and more

This is a going to a science policy heavy posting with both a conference and the latest report from the Canadian Council of Academies (CCA).

2018 Canadian Science Policy Conference

As I noted in my March 1, 2018 posting, this is the fourth year in a row that the conference is being held in Ottawa and the theme for this 10th edition is ‘Building Bridges Between Science, Policy and Society‘.

The dates are November 7 -9, 2018 and as the opening draws closer I’m getting more ‘breathlessly enthusiastic’ announcements. Here are a few highlights from an October 23, 2018 announcement received via email,

CSPC 2018 is honoured to announce that the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, will be delivering the keynote speech of the Gala Dinner on Thursday, November 8 at 7:00 PM. Minister Duncan will also hand out the 4th Science Policy Award of Excellence to the winner of this year’s competition.

CSPC 2018 features 250 speakers, a record number, and above is the breakdown of the positions they hold, over 43% of them being at the executive level and 57% of our speakers being women.

*All information as of October 15, 2018

If you think that you will not meet any new people at CSPC and all of the registrants are the same as last year, think again!

Over 57% of  registrants are attending the conference for the FIRST TIME!

Secure your spot today!

*All information as of October 15, 2018

Here’s more from an October 31, 2018 announcement received via email,

One year after her appointment as Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer will discuss her experience with the community. Don’t miss this opportunity.

[Canadian Science Policy Centre editorials in advance of conference]

Paul Dufour
“Evidence and Science in Parliament–Looking Back at CSPC and Moving Forward”

Dr. Tom Corr
“Commercializing Innovation in Canada: Advancing in the Right Direction”

Joseph S Sparling, PhD
“Reimagining the Canadian Postdoctoral Training System”

Milton Friesen
“Conspiring Together for Good: Institutional Science and Religion”

Joseph Tafese
“Science and the Next Generation : Science and Inclusivity, Going beyond the Slogans”

Eva Greyeyes
“Opinion Editorial for CSPC, November 2018”

Monique Crichlow
Chris Loken

“Policy Considerations Towards Converged HPC-AI Platforms”

Should you be in the Ottawa area November 7 – 9, 2018, it’s still possible to register.

**Update November 6, 2018: The 2018 CSPC is Sold Out!**

Council of Canadian Academies: job and the ‘managing innovation’ report

Let’s start with the job (from the posting),

October 17, 2018

Role Title:      Director of Communications
Deadline:       November 5, 2018
Salary:            $115,000 to $165,000

About the Council of Canadian Academies
The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts assessments of evidence on scientific topics of public interest to inform decision-making in Canada.

Role Summary
The CCA is seeking an experienced communications professional to join its senior management team as Director of Communications. Reporting to the President and CEO, the Director is responsible for developing and implementing a communications plan for the organization that promotes and highlights the CCA’s work, brand, and overall mission to a variety of potential users and stakeholders; overseeing the publication and dissemination of high-quality hard copy and online products; and providing strategic advice to the President and CCA’s Board, Committees, and Panels. In fulfilling these responsibilities, the Director of Communications is expected to work with a variety of interested groups including the media, the broad policy community, government, and non-governmental organizations.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
Under the direction of the President and CEO, the Director leads a small team of communications and publishing professionals to meet the responsibilities and accountabilities outlined below.

Strategy Development and External Communications
• Develop and execute an overall strategic communications plan for the organization that promotes and highlights the CCA’s work, brand, and overall mission.
• Oversee the CCA’s presence and influence on digital and social platforms including the development and execution of a comprehensive content strategy for linking CCA’s work with the broader science and policy ecosystem with a focus on promoting and disseminating the findings of the CCA’s expert panel reports.
• Provide support, as needed for relevant government relations activities including liaising with communications counterparts, preparing briefing materials, responding to requests to share CCA information, and coordinating any appearances before Parliamentary committees or other bodies.
• Harness opportunities for advancing the uptake and use of CCA assessments, including leveraging the strengths of key partners particularly the founding Academies.

Publication and Creative Services
• Oversee the creative services, quality control, and publication of all CCA’s expert panel reports including translation, layout, quality assurance, graphic design, proofreading, and printing processes.
• Oversee the creative development and publication of all CCA’s corporate materials including the Annual Report and Corporate Plan through content development, editing, layout, translation, graphic design, proofreading, and printing processes.

Advice and Issues Management
• Provide strategic advice and support to the President’s Office, Board of Directors, Committees, and CCA staff about increasing the overall impact of CCA expert panel reports, brand awareness, outreach opportunities, and effective science communication.
• Provide support to the President by anticipating project-based or organizational issues, understanding potential implications, and suggesting strategic management solutions.
• Ensure consistent messages, style, and approaches in the delivery of all internal and external communications across the organization.

Leadership
• Mentor, train, and advise up to five communications and publishing staff on a day-to-day basis and complete annual performance reviews and planning.
• Lead the development and implementation of all CCA-wide policy and procedures relating to all aspects of communications and publishing.
• Represent the issues, needs, and ongoing requirements for the communications and publishing staff as a member of the CCA senior management team.

Knowledge Requirements
The Director of Communications requires:
• Superior knowledge of communications and public relations principles – preferably as it applies in a non-profit or academic setting;
• Extensive experience in communications planning and issues management;
• Knowledge of current research, editorial, and publication production standards and procedures including but not limited to: translation, copy-editing, layout/design, proofreading and publishing;
• Knowledge of evaluating impact of reports and assessments;
• Knowledge in developing content strategy, knowledge mobilization techniques, and creative services and design;
• Knowledge of human resource management techniques and experience managing a team;
• Experience in coordinating, organizing and implementing communications activities including those involving sensitive topics;
• Knowledge of the relationships and major players in Canada’s intramural and extramural science and public policy ecosystem, including awareness of federal science departments and Parliamentary committees, funding bodies, and related research groups;
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, WordPress and other related programs;
• Knowledge of a variety of social media platforms and measurement tools.

Skills Requirements
The Director of Communications must have:
• Superior time and project management skills
• Superior writing skills
• Superior ability to think strategically regarding how best to raise the CCA’s profile and ensure impact of the CCA’s expert panel reports
• Ability to be flexible and adaptable; able to respond quickly to unanticipated demands
• Strong advisory, negotiation, and problem-solving skills
• Strong skills in risk mitigation
• Superior ability to communicate in both written and oral forms, effectively and diplomatically
• Ability to mentor, train, and provide constructive feedback to direct reports

Education and Experience
This knowledge and skillset is typically obtained through the completion of a post-secondary degree in Journalism, Communications, Public Affairs or a related field, and/or a minimum of 10
years of progressive and related experience. Experience in an organization that has addressed topics in public policy would be valuable.

Language Requirements: This position is English Essential. Fluency in French is a strong asset.

To apply to this position please send your CV and cover letter to careers@scienceadvice.ca before November 5, 2018. The cover letter should answer the following questions in 1,000 words or less:

1. How does your background and work experience make you well-suited for the position of Director of Communications at CCA?
2. What trends do you see emerging in the communications field generally, and in science and policy communications more specifically? How might CCA take advantage of these trends and developments?
3. Knowing that CCA is in the business of conducting assessments of evidence on important policy topics, how do you feel communicating this type of science differs from communicating other types of information and knowledge?

Improving Innovation Through Better Management

The Council of Canadian Academies released their ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ report on October 18, 2018..As some of my regular readers (assuming there are some) might have predicted, I have issues.

There’s a distinct disconnection between the described problem and the questions to be answered. From the ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ summary webpage,

While research is world-class and technology start-ups are thriving, few companies grow and mature in Canada. This cycle — invent and sell, invent and sell — allows other countries to capture much of the economic and social benefits of Canadian-invented products, processes, marketing methods, and business models. …

So, the problem is ‘invent and sell’. Leaving aside the questionable conclusion that other countries are reaping the benefits of Canadian innovation (I’ll get back to that shortly), what questions could you ask about how to break the ‘invent and sell, invent and sell’ cycle? Hmm, maybe we should ask, How do we break the ‘invent and sell’ cycle in Canada?

The government presented two questions to deal with the problem and no, how to break the cycle is not one of the questions. From the ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ summary webpage,

… Escaping this cycle may be aided through education and training of innovation managers who can systematically manage ideas for commercial success and motivate others to reimagine innovation in Canada.

To understand how to better support innovation management in Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) asked the CCA two critical questions: What are the key skills required to manage innovation? And, what are the leading practices for teaching these skills in business schools, other academic departments, colleges/polytechnics, and industry?

As lawyers, journalists, scientists, doctors, librarians, and anyone who’s ever received misinformation can tell you, asking the right questions can make a big difference.

As for the conclusion that other countries are reaping the benefits of Canadian innovation, is there any supporting data? We enjoy a very high standard of living and have done so for at least a couple of generations. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a Better Life Index, which ranks well-being on these 11 dimensions (from the OECD Better Life Index entry on Wikipedia), Note: Links have been removed,

  1. Housing: housing conditions and spendings (e.g. real estate pricing)
  2. Income: household income and financial wealth
  3. Jobs: earnings, job security and unemployment
  4. Community: quality of social support network
  5. Education: education and what you get out of it
  6. Environment: quality of environment (e.g. environmental health)
  7. Governance: involvement in democracy
  8. Health
  9. Life Satisfaction: level of happiness
  10. Safety: murder and assault rates
  11. Work-life balance

In 2017, the index ranked Canada as fifth in the world while the US appears to have slipped from a previous ranking of 7th to 8th. (See these Wikipedia entries with relevant subsections for rankings:  OECD Better Life Index; Rankings, 2017 ranking and Standard of living in the United States, Measures, 3rd paragraph.)

This notion that other countries are profiting from Canadian innovation while we lag behind has been repeated so often that it’s become an article of faith and I never questioned it until someone else challenged me. This article of faith is repeated internationally and sometimes seems that every country in the world is worried that someone else will benefit from their national innovation.

Getting back to the Canadian situation, we’ve decided to approach the problem by not asking questions about our article of faith or how to break the ‘invent and sell’ cycle. Instead of questioning an assumption and producing an open-ended question, we have these questions (1) What are the key skills required to manage innovation? (2) And, what are the leading practices for teaching these skills in business schools, other academic departments, colleges/polytechnics, and industry?

in my world that first question, would be a second tier question, at best. The second question, presupposes the answer: more training in universities and colleges. I took a look at the report’s Expert Panel webpage and found it populated by five individuals who are either academics or have strong ties to academe. They did have a workshop and the list of participants does include people who run businesses, from the Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ report (Note: Formatting has not been preserved),

Workshop Participants

Max Blouw,
Former President and Vice-Chancellor of
Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, ON)

Richard Boudreault, FCAE,
Chairman, Sigma Energy
Storage (Montréal, QC)

Judy Fairburn, FCAE,
Past Board Chair, Alberta Innovates;
retired EVP Business Innovation & Chief Digital Officer,
Cenovus Energy Inc. (Calgary, AB)

Tom Jenkins, O.C., FCAE,
Chair of the Board, OpenText
(Waterloo, ON)

Sarah Kaplan,
Director of the Institute for Gender and the
Economy and Distinguished Professor, Rotman School of
Management, University of Toronto (Toronto, ON)

Jean-Michel Lemieux,
Senior Vice President of Engineering,
Shopify Inc. (Ottawa, ON)

Elicia Maine,
Academic Director and Professor, i2I, Beedie
School of Business, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC)

Kathy Malas,
Innovation Platform Manager, CHU
Sainte Justine (Montréal, QC)

John L. Mann, FCAE,
Owner, Mann Consulting
(Blenheim, ON)

Jesse Rodgers,
CEO, Volta Labs (Halifax, NS)

Creso Sá,
Professor of Higher Education and Director of
the Centre for the Study of Canadian and International
Higher Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto (Toronto, ON)

Dhirendra Shukla,
Professor and Chair, J. Herbert Smith
Centre for Technology Management & Entrepreneurship,
Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick
(Fredericton, NB)

Dan Sinai,
Senior Executive, Innovation, IBM Canada
(Toronto, ON)

Valerie Walker,
Executive Director, Business/Higher
Education Roundtable (Ottawa, ON)

J. Mark Weber,
Eyton Director, Conrad School of
Entrepreneurship & Business, University of Waterloo
(Waterloo, ON)

I am a little puzzled by the IBM executive’s presence (Dan Sinai) on this list. Wouldn’t Canadians holding onto their companies be counterproductive to IBM’s interests? As for John L. Mann, I’ve not been able to find him or his consulting company online. it’s unusual not to find any trace of an individual or company online these days.

In all there were nine individuals representing academic or government institutions in this list. The gender balance is 10 males and five females for the workshop participants and three males and two females for the expert panel. There is no representation from the North or from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland.

If they’re serious about looking at how to use innovation to drive higher standards of living, why aren’t there any people from Asian countries where they have been succeeding at that very project? South Korea and China come to mind.

I’m sure there are some excellent ideas in the report, I just wish they’d taken their topic to heart and actually tried to approach innovation in Canada in an innovative fashion.

Meanwhile, Vancouver gets another technology hub, from an October 30, 2018 article by Kenneth Chan for the Daily Hive (Vancouver [Canada]), Note: Links have been removed,

Vancouver’s rapidly growing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) tech sectors will greatly benefit from a new VR and AR hub created by Launch Academy.

The technology incubator has opened a VR and AR hub at its existing office at 300-128 West Hastings Street in downtown, in partnership with VR/AR Association Vancouver. Immersive tech companies have access to desk space, mentorship programs, VR/AR equipment rentals, investor relations connected to Silicon Valley [emphasis mine], advisory services, and community events and workshops.

Within the Vancouver tech industry, the immersive sector has grown from 15 companies working in VR and AR in 2015 to 220 organizations today.

Globally, the VR and AR market is expected to hit a value of $108 billion by 2021, with tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft [emphasis mine] investing billions into product development.

In the Vancouver region, the ‘invent and sell’ cycle can be traced back to the 19th century.

One more thing, as I was writing this piece I tripped across this news: “$7.7-billion pact makes Encana more American than Canadian‘ by Geoffrey Morgan. It’s in the Nov. 2, 2018 print edition of the Vancouver Sun’s front page for business. “Encana Corp., the storied Canadian company that had been slowly transitioning away from Canada and natural gas over the past few years under CEO [Chief Executive Officer] Doug Suttles, has pivoted aggressively to US shale basins. … Suttles, formerly as BP Plc. executive, moved from Calgary [Alberta, Canada] to Denver [Colorado, US], though the company said that was for personal reasons and not a precursor to relocation of Encana’s headquarters.”  Yes, that’s quite believable. By the way, Suttles has spent* most of his life in the US (Wikipedia entry).

In any event, it’s not just Canadian emerging technology companies that get sold or somehow shifted out of Canada.

So, should we break the cycle and, if so, how are we going to do it?

*’spend’ corrected to ‘spent’ on November 6, 2018.

Scientists, outreach and Twitter research plus some tips from a tweeting scientist

I have two bits today and both concern science and Twitter.

Twitter science research

A doodle by Isabelle Côté to illustrate her recent study on the effectiveness of scientists using Twitter to share their research with the public. Credit: Isabelle Côté

I was quite curious about this research on scientists and their Twitter audiences coming from Simon Fraser University (SFU; Vancouver, Canada). From a July 11, 2018 SFU news release (also on EurekAlert),

Isabelle Côté is an SFU professor of marine ecology and conservation and an active science communicator whose prime social media platform is Twitter.

Côté, who has cultivated more than 5,800 followers since she began tweeting in 2012, recently became curious about who her followers are.

“I wanted to know if my followers are mainly scientists or non-scientists – in other words was I preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops?” she says.

Côté and collaborator Emily Darling set out to find the answer by analyzing the active Twitter accounts of more than 100 ecology and evolutionary biology faculty members at 85 institutions across 11 countries.

Their methodology included categorizing followers as either “inreach” if they were academics, scientists and conservation agencies and donors; or “outreach” if they were science educators, journalists, the general public, politicians and government agencies.

Côté found that scientists with fewer than 1,000 followers primarily reach other scientists. However, scientists with more than 1,000 followers have more types of followers, including those in the “outreach” category.

Twitter and other forms of social media provide scientists with a potential way to share their research with the general public and, importantly, decision- and policy-makers. Côté says public pressure can be a pathway to drive change at a higher level. However, she notes that while social media is an asset, it is “not likely an effective replacement for the more direct science-to-policy outreach that many scientists are now engaging in, such as testifying in front of special governmental committees, directly contacting decision-makers, etc.”

Further, even with greater diversity and reach of followers, the authors concede there are still no guarantees that Twitter messages will be read or understood. Côté cites evidence that people selectively read what fits with their perception of the world, that changing followers’ minds about deeply held beliefs is challenging.

“While Twitter is emerging as a medium of choice for scientists, studies have shown that less than 40 per cent of academic scientists use the platform,” says Côté.

“There’s clearly a lot of room for scientists to build a social media presence and increase their scientific outreach. Our results provide scientists with clear evidence that social media can be used as a first step to disseminate scientific messages well beyond the ivory tower.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper (my thoughts on the matter are after),

Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops? by Isabelle M. Côté and Emily S. Darling. Facets DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2018-0002 Published Online 28 June 2018

This paper is in an open access journal.

Thoughts on the research

Neither of the researchers, Côté and Darling, appears to have any social science training; so where I’d ordinarily laud the researchers for their good work, I have to include extra kudos for taking on a type of research outside their usual domain of expertise.

If this sort of thing interests you and you have the time, I definitely recommend reading the paper (from the paper‘s introduction), Note: Links have been removed)

Communication has always been an integral part of the scientific endeavour. In Victorian times, for example, prominent scientists such as Thomas H. Huxley and Louis Agassiz delivered public lectures that were printed, often verbatim, in newspapers and magazines (Weigold 2001), and Charles Darwin wrote his seminal book “On the origin of species” for a popular, non-specialist audience (Desmond and Moore 1991). In modern times, the pace of science communication has become immensely faster, information is conveyed in smaller units, and the modes of delivery are far more numerous. These three trends have culminated in the use of social media by scientists to share their research in accessible and relevant ways to potential audiences beyond their peers. The emphasis on accessibility and relevance aligns with calls for scientists to abandon jargon and to frame and share their science, especially in a “post-truth” world that can emphasize emotion over factual information (Nisbet and Mooney 2007; Bubela et al. 2009; Wilcox 2012; Lubchenco 2017).

The microblogging platform Twitter is emerging as a medium of choice for scientists (Collins et al. 2016), although it is still used by a minority (<40%) of academic faculty (Bart 2009; Noorden 2014). Twitter allows users to post short messages (originally up to 140 characters, increased to 280 characters since November 2017) that can be read by any other user. Users can elect to follow other users whose posts they are interested in, in which case they automatically see their followees’ tweets; conversely, users can be followed by other users, in which case their tweets can be seen by their followers. No permission is needed to follow a user, and reciprocation of following is not mandatory. Tweets can be categorized (with hashtags), repeated (retweeted), and shared via other social media platforms, which can exponentially amplify their spread and can offer links to websites, blogs, or scientific papers (Shiffman 2012).

There are scientific advantages to using digital communication technologies such as Twitter. Scientific users describe it as a means to stay abreast of new scientific literature, grant opportunities, and science policy, to promote their own published papers and exchange ideas, and to participate in conferences they cannot attend in person as “virtual delegates” (Bonetta 2009; Bik and Goldstein 2013; Parsons et al. 2014; Bombaci et al. 2016). Twitter can play a role in most parts of the life cycle of a scientific publication, from making connections with potential collaborators, to collecting data or finding data sources, to dissemination of the finished product (Darling et al. 2013; Choo et al. 2015). There are also some quantifiable benefits for scientists using social media. For example, papers that are tweeted about more often also accumulate more citations (Eysenbach 2011; Thelwall et al. 2013; Peoples et al. 2016), and the volume of tweets in the first week following publication correlates with the likelihood of a paper becoming highly cited (Eysenbach 2011), although such relationships are not always present (e.g., Haustein et al. 2014).

In addition to any academic benefits, scientists might adopt social media, and Twitter in particular, because of the potential to increase the reach of scientific messages and direct engagement with non-scientific audiences (Choo et al. 2015). This potential comes from the fact that Twitter leverages the power of weak ties, defined as low-investment social interactions that are not based on personal relationships (Granovetter 1973). On Twitter, follower–followee relationships are weak: users generally do not personally know the people they follow or the people who follow them, as their interactions are based mainly on message content. Nevertheless, by retweeting and sharing messages, weak ties can act as bridges across social, geographic, or cultural groups and contribute to a wide and rapid spread of information (Zhao et al. 2010; Ugander et al. 2012). The extent to which the messages of tweeting scientists benefit from the power of weak ties is unknown. Does Twitter provide a platform that allows scientists to simply promote their findings to other scientists within the ivory tower (i.e., “inreach”), or are tweeting scientists truly exploiting social media to potentially reach new audiences (“outreach”) (Bik et al. 2015; McClain and Neeley 2015; Fig. 1)?

Fig. 1. Conceptual depiction of inreach and outreach for Twitter communication by academic faculty. Left: If Twitter functions as an inreach tool, tweeting scientists might primarily reach only other scientists and perhaps, over time (arrow), some applied conservation and management science organizations. Right: If Twitter functions as an outreach tool, tweeting scientists might first reach other scientists, but over time (arrow) they will eventually attract members of the media, members of the public who are not scientists, and decision-makers (not necessarily in that order) as followers.

I’m glad to see this work but it’s use of language is not as precise in some places as it could be. They use the term ‘scientists’ throughout but their sample is made up of scientists identified as ecology and/or evolutionary biology (EEMB) researchers, as they briefly note in their Abstract and in the Methods section. With the constant use of the generic term, scientist, throughout most of the paper and taken in tandem with its use in the title, it’s easy to forget that this was a sample of a very specific population..

That the researchers’ sample of EEMB scientists is made up of those working at universities (academic scientists) is clear and it presents an interesting problem. How much does it matter that these are academic scientists? Both in regard to the research itself and with regard to perceptions about scientists. A sentence stating the question is beyond the scope of their research might have been a good idea.

Impressively, Darling and Côté have reached past the English language community to include other language groups, “We considered as many non-English Twitter profiles as possible by including common translations of languages we were familiar with (i.e., French and Spanish: biologista, professeur, profesora, etc.) in our search strings; …”

I cannot emphasize how rare it is to see this attempt to reach out beyond the English language community. Yes!

Getting back to my concern about language,  I would have used ‘suspect’ rather than ‘assume’ in this sentence from the paper’s Discussion, “We assume [emphasis mine] that the patterns we have uncovered for a sample of ecologists and evolutionary biologists in faculty positions can apply broadly across other academic disciplines.” I agree it’s quite likely but it’s an hypothesis/supposition and  needs to be tested. For example, will this hold true if you examine social scientists (such as economists, linguists, political scientists, psychologists, …) or physicists or mathematicians or …?

Is this evidence of unconscious bias regarding wheat the researchers term as ‘non-scientists’?  From the paper’s Discussion (Note: Links have been removed),

Of course, high numbers, diversity, and reach of followers offer no guarantee that messages will be read or understood. There is evidence that people selectively read what fits with their perception of the world (e.g., Sears and Freedman 1967; McPherson et al. 2001; Sunstein 2001; Himelboim et al. 2013). Thus, non-scientists [emphases mine] who follow scientists on Twitter might already be positively inclined to consume scientific information. If this is true, then one could argue that Twitter therefore remains an echo chamber, but it is a much larger one than the usual readership of scientific publications. Moreover, it is difficult to gauge the level of understanding of scientific tweets. The brevity and fragmented nature of science tweets can lead to shallow processing and comprehension of the message (Jiang et al. 2016). One metric of the influence of tweets is the extent to which they are shared (i.e., retweeted). Twitter users retweet posts when they find them interesting (hence the posts were at least read, if not understood) and when they deem the source credible (Metaxas et al. 2015). To our knowledge, there are no data on how often tweets by scientists are reposted by different types of followers. Such information would provide further evidence for an outreach function of Twitter in science communication.

Yes, it’s true that high numbers, etc. do not guarantee your messages will be read or understood and that people do selectively choose what fits their perception of the world. However, that applies equally to scientists and non-scientists despite what the authors appear to be claiming. Also, their use of the term non-scientist is not clear to me. Is this a synonym for ‘general public’ or is it being applied to anyone who may not have an educational background in science but is designated in another category such as policy makers, science communicators, etc. in the research paper?

In any event, ‘policy makers’ absorb a great deal of the researchers’ attention, from the paper’s Discussion (Note: Links have been removed),

Under most theories of change that describe how science ultimately affects evidence-based policies, decision-makers are a crucial group that should be engaged by scientists (Smith et al. 2013). Policy changes can be effected either through direct application of research to policy or, more often, via pressure from public awareness, which can drive or be driven by research (Baron 2010; Phillis et al. 2013). Either pathway requires active engagement by scientists with society (Lubchenco 2017). It is arguably easier than ever for scientists to have access to decision- and policy-makers, as officials at all levels of government are increasingly using social media to connect with the public (e.g., Grant et al. 2010; Kapp et al. 2015). However, we found that decision-makers accounted for only ∼0.3% (n = 191 out of 64 666) of the followers of academic scientists (see also Bombaci et al. 2016 in relation to the audiences of conference tweeting). Moreover, decision-makers begin to follow scientists in greater numbers only once the latter have reached a certain level of “popularity” (i.e., ∼2200 followers; Table 2). The general concern about whether scientific tweets are actually read by followers applies even more strongly to decision-makers, as they are known to use Twitter largely as a broadcasting tool rather than for dialogue (Grant et al. 2010). Thus, social media is not likely an effective replacement for more direct science-to-policy outreach that many scientists are now engaging in, such as testifying in front of special governmental committees, directly contacting decision-makers, etc. However, by actively engaging a large Twitter following of non-scientists, scientists increase the odds of being followed by a decision-maker who might see their messages, as well as the odds of being identified as a potential expert for further contributions.

It may due to the types of materials I tend to stumble across but science outreach has usually been presented as largely an educational effort with the long term goal of assuring the public will continue to support science funding. This passage in the research paper suggests more immediate political and career interests.

Should scientists be on Twitter?

This paper might discourage someone whose primary goal is to reach policy makers via this social media platform but the researchers seem to feel there is value in reaching out to a larger audience. While I’m not comfortable with how the researchers have generalized their results to the entire population of scientists, those results are intriguing..

This next bit features a scientist who as it turns out could be described as an EEMB (evolutionary biology and/or ecology) researcher.

How to tweet science

Stephen Heard wrote a July 31, 2018 posting on his Scientist Sees Squirrel blog about his Twitter feed,

At the 2018 conference of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, I was part of a lunchtime workshop, “The How and Why of Tweeting Science” – along with 5 friends.  Here I’ll share my slides and commentary.  I hope the other presenters will do the same, and I’ll link to them here as they become available.

 

I’ve been active on Twitter for about 4 years, but I’m very far from an expert, so my contribution to #CSEETweetShop was more to raise questions than to answer them.  What does it mean to “tweet to the science community”?  Here I’ll share some thoughts about Twitter audience, content, and voice.  These are, of course, my own (roughly formed) opinions, not some kind of wisdom on stone tablets, so take them with the requisite grain of salt!

Audience

 

Just as we do with blogging, we can draw a distinction between two audiences we might intend to reach via Twitter.  We might use Twitter for outreach, to talk to the general public – we could call this “science-communication tweeting”.  Or we could use Twitter for “inreach”, to talk to other scientists – which is what I’d call “science-community tweeting”.  But: for a couple of reasons, this distinction is not as clear as you might thing.  Or at least, your intent to reach one audience or the other may not match the outcome.

There are some data on the topic of scientists’ Twitter audiences.  The data in the slide above come from a recent paper by Isabelle Coté and Emily Darling.  They’re for a sample of 110 faculty members in ecology and evolution, for whom audiences are broken down by their relationship (if any) to science.  The key result: most ecology and evolution faculty on Twitter have audiences dominated by other scientists (light blue), with the general public (dark blue) a significant but more modest chunk. There’s variation, some of which may well relate to the tweeters’ intended audiences – but we can draw two fairly clear conclusions:

  • Nearly all of us tweet mostly to the science community; but
  • Almost none of us tweets only to the science community (or for that matter only to the general public).

The same paper analyzes follower composition as a function of audience size, and these data suggest that one’s audience is likely to change it builds.  Notice how the dark-blue “general public” line lags behind, then catches, the light-blue “other scientists” line*.  Earlier in your Twitter career, it’s likely that your audience will be even more strongly dominated by the science community – whether or not that’s what you intend.

In short: you probably can’t pick the audience you’re talking to; but you can pick the audience you’re talking for.  Given that, how might you use Twitter to talk for the science community?

I particularly like his constant questions about audience. He discusses other issues, such as content, but he always returns to the audience. Having worked in communication(s) and marketing, I have to applaud his focus on the audience. I can’t tell you how many times, we’d answer the question as to whom our audience was and we’d never revisit it. (mea culpa) Heard’s insistence on constantly checking in and questioning your assumptions is excellent.

Seeing  Coté’s and Darling’s paper cited in his presentation, gives some idea of how closely he follows the thinking about science outreach in his field.

Both Coté’s and Darling’s academic paper and Heard’s posting make for accessible reading while offering valuable information.

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on July 31st. 2018: Test Tubes to Teaching: How Anti-Vaxxers and a Global Financial Crisis Shaped my Career

I received (via email) this Café Scientifique July 15, 2018 notice ,

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, JULY 31ST at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER’S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. NIENKE VAN HOUTEN from THE FACULTY OF HEALTH
SCIENCES AT SFU. Her topic will be:

TEST TUBES TO TEACHING: HOW ANTI-VAXXERS AND A GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
SHAPED MY CAREER

Part research talk, and part memoir, Dr. van Houten will describe her
career progression from vaccine design scientist to education
researcher. From early childhood, Dr. van Houten developed an
unrelenting interest in human biology and infectious diseases and made
it her goal to become a scientist. Her passion for vaccines came about,
in part, due to the publicity surrounding the infamous retracted paper
in _The Lancet_ that erroneously connected measles vaccination with
autism. Her Ph.D. and postdoctoral research focused on how vaccines
work, and she engineered anti-viral vaccines to produce focused antibody
responses. However, her plan of working in the pharmaceutical industry
was sidelined by the financial crash of 2008, and she was offered a full
time teaching faculty position. This created an opportunity to study how
students think critically about science and apply those findings to
train students to recognize bad science such as that promoted by
anti-vaxxers and other garbage “science” that pervades our society.

We hope to see you there!

I wasn’t able to find out much more about Dr. van Houten and her work but her SFU profile page is here.

Curiosity collides with the quantum and with the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada in Vancouver (Canada)

There are a couple of events coming up in April and an opportunity to submit your work for inclusion in a Curiosity Collider event or two. There’s also a Science Writers and Communicators conference being held from April 12 – 15, 2018. All of this is happening in Vancouver, Canada.

Curiosity Collider events, etc.

Colliding with the Quantum

From a March 23, 2018 announcement (received via email) from CuriosityCollider.org,

MOA [Museum of Anthropology] Night Shift: Quantum Futures

In the quantum realm, what is observable and what is not? What happens when we mix art and science? 

Join us at UBC Museum of Anthropology on the evening of April 5 [2018] and immerse yourself in quantum physics through dance, spoken word, projection sculpture, virtual reality, and hands-on activities.

This event is curated by Curiosity Collider Art-Science Foundation with collaborations from UBC Physics & Astronomy and Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute.

Let us know you are coming on Facebook | See list of participating artists/scientists

For anyone who needs directions, clicking on this UBC Museum of Anthropology link for Getting Here should help.

I wanted a few more details about the event and found them on Curiosity Collider’s Night Shift webpage,

Doors/Bar/Art & Science Activities 6 pm | Live Show 7:30 pm | Entry with museum admission ($10; free for UBC students & staff, Indigenous peoples, children under 6, and MOA Members)| Family Friendly

This event is curated by Curiosity Collider Creative Managing Director Char Hoyt.

The artwork gathered together for this event is a delightful blending of some of the most famous theories in Quantum Mechanics with both traditional and new artistic practices. When science is filtered through a creative expression it can both inspire and reveal new ways of seeing and understanding the concepts within. Our performers have crafted thoughtful experiences through dance, spoken word, sound, and light, that express the weirdness of the quantum realm and how it is reflected in our daily lives. We have also worked closely with scientists to develop hands-on activities that embody the same principles to create experiences that engage your creativity in understanding the quantum world. We encourage you to interact with the artists and scientists and let their work guide you through the quantum realm.

Participating artists and scientists

Most of these folks are associated with the Quantum Matter Institute.

Call for submissions

From a March 23, 2018 announcement (received via email) from CuriosityCollider.org,

Call for Submissions:
Women in STEM Exhibition

Interstitial: Science Innovations by Canadian Women is a two-week exhibition (June 1-14) and events showcasing work by female artists featuring women in STEM. We are looking for one more 2D artist/illustrator to join the exhibition and will accept existing work. Deadline April 6. To submit, visit our website.

This exhibition is funded by the Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology (WWEST) and eng-cite.

#Sciart & #Scicomm at Science World on April 12, 2018 (a Science Writers and Communicators of Canada [SWCC] reception)

From a March 23, 2018 announcement (received via email) from CuriosityCollider.org,

#Sciart & #Scicomm at Science World

On April 12, Curiosity Collider is bringing art+science to the Science Writers and Communications of Canada Annual Conference here in Vancouver. The public evening event will include performances and activities by Curiosity Collider, Science Slam, Beaker Head (Alberta) [sic], and SFU (Simon Fraser University) Faculty of Applied Science. We will also be hosting a silent auction to showcase local #sciart and support future art+science project, including our annual exhibition SPARK!

Get your tickets now! | Let us know you are coming on Facebook

I found more information about this event at something called allevents.in/vancouver,

SciComm Social with SWCC and STAN

Science Writers and Communicators of Canada (SWCC) and Science Technology Awareness Network (STAN) are hosting their annual conferences in Vancouver in April. This joint reception event featuring #scicomm and #sciart is free for conference delegates and also open to the public … . [emphasis mine]

Friends, family, and fans of science communication & communicators welcome!

This evening event will include performances and activities from:
* Beakerhead – Power Point Karaoke, hosted by Banff SciComm/Beakerhead alumni: A deck of slides is provided. Brave participants, who have never seen the slides before, improvise the talk. Hilarity ensues, egged on by an enthusiastic audience.
* Curiosity Collider – #sciart silent auction, stage performances, and art installation
* SFU Applied Sciences – interactive technology exhibits
* Science Slam Canada – Whether it’s a talk, a poem, a song, a dance, or something completely unexpected, the possibilities are endless. Our only two rules? Five minute slams, and no slideshows allowed!

Get your tickets – available until April 10! This is a 19+ event. Performances starting at 7:30, doors at 7 pm.

Weirdly, no mention is made of the cost. Tickets are $25. for anyone who’s not attending the conference and you can register for and purchase your ticket here. As for location, this event is being held at Science World at Telus World of Science (known locally as Science World), here’s where you find directions for how to get to Science World.

Science Writers and Communicators Conference in Vancouver from April 12 – 15, 2018

Before getting to the costs here a couple of peeks at the programme. First, there’s a March 25, 2018 posting on the SWCC blog by Ashley EM Miller about one of the conference sessions,

Art can be a way to engage the public with science through the the simple fact that novelty sparks curiosity. Artists in the emerging field of sci-art utilize science concepts, methods, principles and information within their practice. Their art, along with the work of science illustrators, can facilitate a deeper emotional connection to science, particularly in those who don’t regularly pay attention or feel welcome.

However, using artwork in science communication is not as simple as inserting a picture into a body of text and referencing the artist in MLA style.

For those coming from the sciences, citing your sources, as laborious as that may be, is a given. While that is fine for incorporating  information, that isn’t always adequate for artwork. In the art world, artists know how to ask other artists to use their work. If a scientist or science communicator does not have an “in” with the art community, they may not know where to find legal information about using art.


Anyone interested in using artwork in their science communication practice, should attend the upcoming SWCC conference’s professional development session “On Copyright, Ethics and Attribution: Interdisciplinary Collaborations Between Artists and Scientists”. The panel discussion will be moderated by Theresa Liao of Curiosity Collider and Sarah Louadi of Voirelia, both of whom are intimately familiar with combining art and science in their respective organizations. Sarah and Theresa will lead a much-needed conversation about the benefits and best practices of partnerships between artists and science communicators.


The session boasts a well-rounded panel. Attendees will gain insights on aspects of the art world with panelists Kate Campbell, a science illustrator, and Steven J. Barnes, a psychologist and artist. Legal and ethical considerations will be provided by Lawrence Chan, an intellectual property lawyer, and April Britski, the National Executive Director of Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC). For those unfamiliar, CARFAC is a federal organization that acts as a voice for visual artists in Canada and outlines minimum fee guidelines among other things.

Science communicators and bloggers will certainly benefit from the session, particularly early-career freelancers. When working independently, there are no organizational policies and procedures in place for you to follow. It means that you have to check everything yourself, and this session will give you a crash course of what to look for in artist collaborations, what to ask and how to ask it. Even researchers will benefit from the discussion, by learning about the opportunities for working with science illustrators and about what to expect.


On Copyright, Ethics and Attribution: Interdisciplinary Collaborations Between Artists and Scientists”. will take place at 3:15 pm on Saturday April 14th as part of the conference’s concurrent Professional Development sessions. …

There’s a programme schedule for the 2018 conference here and it includes both an “At a glance’ version and a more fulsome description of the various sessions such as these,

THURSDAY APRIL 12

Act your Science – Interactive Improvisation Training

10:00 am – 12:00 pm Innovation Lab

Come and share a taste of a communication program developed by Jeff Dunn, in collaboration with SWCC, the Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary and the University of Calgary. The goal of this presentation is to provide a taste of how improvisation can be used to improve communication skills in science fields. This hands-on exercise will help participants build capacity to communicate science to various audiences by learning how to fail gracefully in public (to help reduce presentation anxiety), how to connect with your audience and how to recognize and use status in personal interactions.

The full program is 10hrs of training, in this shorter session, we will sample the program in a fun interactive environment. Be prepared to release your inner thespian. Space is limited to 20 people

Jeff Dunn has been a research scientist in brain and imaging for over 30 years. He has a strong interest in mentoring science trainees to broaden their career skills and has recently been developing programs to improve science communication. One class, gaining traction, is “Act your Science”, a custom designed course using improvisation to improving science communication skills for science trainees. He is an alumni of the Banff Science Communication program where he first experienced improvisation training for science. He has held a Canada Research Chair and has Directed the Experimental Imaging Centre at the University of Calgary since 2004. He has over 150 science publications in diverse journals ranging from Polar Biology to the Journal of Neurotrauma. He has supervised scores of graduate students and taught on subjects including MRI, optical imaging and brain physiology at altitude. His imaging research currently includes multiple sclerosis, brain cancer and concussion.

Video Booth: How I SciComm – go ahead and tell all, we want to know! 

 Available 10:am – 2:30pm: Exploration Lab

A camera team will be on hand to help you record and upload your 1 minute video about who you are, and how you do your science communications. Here are some questions for you to think about:

1. Who are you?

2. How do you do your science communications?

3. What’s your favourite science trivia? What’s something cool you learned when researching a storyWhat’s your favourite jargon? What’s a word you had to memorizing pronunciation or spelling for a story

A Community of Innovators: 50 Years of TRIUMF

2:30 -3:30 pm  Science Theatre

 

Ask TRIUMF’s spirited founders and emeriti about the humble beginnings of Canada’s particle accelerator centre and you will invariably hear: “This used to be just a big pile of dirt.” You could imagine TRIUMF’s founding members five decades ago standing at the edge of the empty lot nestled between the forest and the sea, contemplating possibilities. But not even TRIUMF’s founders could have imagined the twists and turns of the lab’s 50-year journey, nor the impact that the lab would have on the people of Canada and the world.

Today, on that same 12.8-acre plot of land, TRIUMF houses world-leading research and technology, and fuels Canada’s collective imagination for the future of particle and nuclear physics and accelerator science. Join TRIUMF’s Director Jonathan Bagger and colleagues for an exploration of TRIUMF’s origins, impacts, and possibilities – a story of collaboration that over five decades celebrates a multifaceted community and growing family of 20 Canadian member universities and partners from around the world. www.triumf50.com  @TRIUMFlab

FRIDAY, APRIL 13 

Frontiers in SciComm Policy & Practice

Canada 2067 – Building a national vision for STEM learning

10:30 Room 1900

Canada 2067 is an ambitious initiative to develop a national vision and goals for youth learning in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Significant and scalable changes in education can be achieved by aligning efforts towards shared goals that support all children and youth in Canada.  A draft framework has been developed that builds on research into global policy, broad-based public input, five youth summits, consultation with millennials and a national leadership conference. It calls for action by diverse stakeholders including students, educators, parents, community organizations, industry and all levels of governments.  In this workshop, participants will learn about the initiative and discuss the inherent challenges of catalyzing education change in Canada. Participants will also review the framework and provide feedback that will be incorporated into the final version of the Canada 2067 framework. Input into the design of phase 2 will also be encouraged.

Bonnie Schmidt, C.M., Ph.D.

Founder and President, Let’s Talk Science

Dr. Bonnie Schmidt is the founder and president of Let’s Talk Science, a national charitable organization that helps Canadian youth prepare for future careers and citizenship roles by supporting their engagement in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Annually, Let’s Talk Science is accessed by more than 40% of schools in over 1,700 communities, impacting nearly 1 million youth. More than 3,500 volunteers at 45 post-secondary sites form our world-class outreach network. Bonnie currently serves as Chair of the National Leadership Taskforce on Education &amp; Skills for the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) and is on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT). She was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2015 and has received an Honorary Doctorate (Ryerson University), the Purvis Memorial Award (Chemical Institute of Canada), Community Service Award (Life Sciences Ontario), and a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award. @BMSchmidt

Infographics: Worth a Thousand Words with Kate Broadly and Sonya Odsen

1:15 Room 1520

Infographics have become a popular way to present results to non-specialist audiences, and they are a very effective tool for sharing science on social platforms. Infographics are more likely to be shared online, where they increase engagement with scientific content on platforms like Twitter.

No art skills? No problem! This session will guide you through the process of creating your own infographic, from crafting your story to telling that story visually, and will include strategies to design effective visuals without having to draw (unless you want to!). Topics will include developing your key messages, making your visuals functional rather than decorative, tips for giving your visuals a professional edge, and the best software options for each artistic skill level. Our goal is to empower you to create a visually-pleasing infographic regardless of your art or drawing experience. At the end of this active session, you will have a draft of your own unique infographic ready to be made digital.

The skills you develop during this session will be readily transferable to other visual media, such as talks, posters, or even creating visuals for blog posts.

Kate Broadley

Sonya Odsen

Kate Broadley and Sonya Odsen are Science Communicators with Fuse Consulting. Located in Edmonton, Alberta, Fuse is dedicated to communicating cutting-edge research to different audiences in creative and innovative ways. Their ultimate goal is to bring knowledge to life and empower audiences to apply that knowledge in policy, conservation, research, and their day-to-day lives. Every day, Kate and Sonya tackle complex topics and transform them for specific audiences through writing and design. Infographics are one of their favourite tools for conveying information in fun and accessible ways. Their past and current design projects include interpretive signage for Nature Conservancy Canada, twitter-optimized visual abstracts for the Applied Conservation Ecology lab at the University of Alberta, and a series of science-inspired holiday cards. You can see examples of their work at http://www.fuseconsulting.ca/see-our-work/. Kate and Sonya are also ecologists by training, each holding an M.Sc. from the University of Alberta.

Should this excite your interest,  get going as registration ends March 29, 2018. Here are the rates and the registration link is at the end,

Everyone is Welcome

RATES

Early Bird Registration

SWCC Members: $300

Non-members: $400

Regular Registration 

SWCC Members: $400

  Non-members: $500

Student Rates

SWCC student members: $150

Non-member students: $200

Beakerhead Course: $500

(includes day rate + course fee)

Day Rate: $150

Victoria Half Day Rate: $75

Snorkel Safari: snorkeler $120

Snorkel Safari: ride along $90

Social Evening, April 12

  TELUS Science World, 7:00-10:00pm additional single event tickets: $25.00 (limited)

DATES

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION OPENS: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2018

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION CLOSES: FRIDAY MARCH 9, 2018

REGISTRATION FINAL DEADLINE: THURSDAY MARCH 29, 2018

Conference Dates

April 12, TELUS Science World with STAN

April 13 & 14, SFU Harbour Centre

April 15, Vancouver tours & Victoria day Royal BC Museum

Travel and Accommodation information is available here

Register Here

Have fun!

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on March 27, 2018: Everything I Needed To Know In Life I Learned From a Shark

From a March 6, 2018 Café Scientifique notice (received via email,

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, MARCH 27TH at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER&#39;S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. DAVID SHIFFMAN, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Research
Fellow at Simon Fraser University, where he studies the sustainability
of shark fisheries. David is an award-winning science communicator with
bylines in the Washington Post, Slate, and Gizmodo, and has been
interviewed for over 200 media outlets including National Public Radio
and the New York Times.

EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW IN LIFE I LEARNED FROM A SHARK

Sharks are some of the most fascinating and misunderstood animals on
the planet. Come learn from SFU marine conservation biologist Dr. David
Shiffman about lessons learned from a life obsessed with sharks.

I dug up a bit more about Shiffman; he has his own website, a Twitter feed, and a number of blog postings at southernfriedscience.com.

Is technology taking our jobs? (a Women in Communications and Technology, BC Chapter event) and Brave New Work in Vancouver (Canada)

Awkwardly named as it is, the Women in Communications and Technology BC Chapter (WCTBC) has been reinvigorated after a moribund period (from a Feb. 21, 2018 posting by Rebecca Bollwitt for the Miss 604 blog),

There’s an exciting new organization and event series coming to Vancouver, which will aim to connect, inspire, and advance women in the communications and technology industries. I’m honoured to be on the Board of Directors for the newly rebooted Women in Communications and Technology, BC Chapter (“WCTBC”) and we’re ready to announce our first event!

Women in Debate: Is Technology Taking Our Jobs?

When: Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 5:30pm
Where: BLG – 200 Burrard, 1200 Waterfront Centre, Vancouver
Tickets: Register online today. The cost is $25 for WCT members and $35 for non-members.

Automation, driven by technological progress, has been expanding for the past several decades. As the pace of development increases, so has the urgency in the debate about the potential effects of automation on jobs, employment, and human activity. Will new technology spawn mass unemployment, as the robots take jobs away from humans? Or is this part of a cycle that predates even the Industrial Revolution in which some jobs will become obsolete, while new jobs will be created?

Debaters:
Christin Wiedemann – Co-CEO, PQA Testing
Kathy Gibson – President, Catchy Consulting
Laura Sukorokoff – Senior Trainer & Communications, Hyperwallet
Sally Whitehead – Global Director, Sophos

Based on the Oxford style debates popularized by the podcast ‘Intelligence Squared’, the BC chapter of Women in Communications and Technology brings you Women in Debate: Is Technology Taking Our Jobs?

For anyone not familiar with “Intelligence Squared,”  there’s this from their About webpage,

ntelligence Squared is the world’s premier forum for debate and intelligent discussion. Live and online we take you to the heart of the issues that matter, in the company of some of the world’s sharpest minds and most exciting orators.

Intelligence Squared Live

Our events have captured the imagination of public audiences for more than a decade, welcoming the biggest names in politics, journalism and the arts. Our celebrated list of speakers includes President Jimmy Carter, Stephen Fry, Patti Smith, Richard Dawkins, Sean Penn, Marina Abramovic, Werner Herzog, Terry Gilliam, Anne Marie Slaughter, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Mary Beard, Yuval Noah Harari, Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, Eric Schmidt, Richard Branson, Professor Brian Cox, Nate Silver, Umberto Eco, Martin Amis and Grayson Perry.

Further digging into WCTBC unearthed this story about the reasons for its ‘reboot’, from the Who we are / Regional Chapters / British Columbia webpage,

“Earlier this month [October 2017?], Christin Wiedemann and Briana Sim, co-Chairs of the BC Chapter of WCT, attended a Women in IoT [Internet of Things] event in Vancouver. The event was organized by the GE Women’s Network and TELUS Connections, with WCT as an event partner. The event sold out after only two days, and close to 200 women attended.

Five female panelists representing different backgrounds and industries talked about the impact IoT is having on our lives today, and how they think IoT fits into the future of the technology landscape. Christin facilitated the Q&A portion of the event, and had an opportunity to share that the BC chapter is rebooting and hopes to launch a kickoff event later in November”

You can find a summary of the event here (http://gereports.ca/theres-lots-room-us-top-insights-five-canadas-top-women-business-leaders-iot/#), and you can also check out the Storify (https://storify.com/cwiedemann/women-in-iot​).”

– October 6th, 2017

Simon Fraser University’s Brave New Work

Coincidentally or not, there’s a major series of events being offered by Simon Fraser University’s (SFU; located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Public Square Programme in their 2018 Community Summit Series titled: Brave New Work; How can we thrive in the changing world of work? which takes place February 26, 2018 to March 7, 2018.

There’s not a single mention (!!!!!) of Brave New World (by Aldous Huxley) in what is clearly word play based on this man’s book.

From the 2018 Community Summit: Brave New Work webpage on the SFU website (Note: Links have been removed),

How can we thrive in the changing world of work?

The 2018 Community Summit, Brave New Work, invites us to consider how we can all thrive in the changing world of work.

Technological growth is happening at an unprecedented rate and scale, and it is fundamentally altering the way we organize and value work. The work we do (and how we do it) is changing. One of the biggest challenges in effectively responding to this new world of work is creating a shared understanding of the issues at play and how they intersect. Individuals, businesses, governments, educational institutions, and civil society must collaborate to construct the future we want.

The future of work is here, but it’s still ours to define. From February 26th to March 7th, we will convene diverse communities through a range of events and activities to provoke thinking and encourage solution-finding. We hope you’ll join us.

The New World of Work: Thriving or Surviving?

As part of its 2018 Community Summit, Brave New Work, SFU Public Square is proud to present, in partnership with Vancity, an evening with Van Jones and Anne-Marie Slaughter, moderated by CBC’s Laura Lynch at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Van Jones and Anne-Marie Slaughter, two leading commentators on the American economy, will discuss the role that citizens, governments and civil society can play in shaping the future of work. They will explore the challenges ahead, as well as how these challenges might be addressed through green jobs, emergent industries, education and public policy.

Join us for an important conversation about how the future of work can be made to work for all of us.

Are you a member of Vancity? As one of the many perks of being a Vancity member, you have access to a free ticket to attend the event. For your free ticket, please visit Vancity for more information. There are a limited number of seats reserved for Vancity members, so we encourage you to register early.

Tickets are now on sale, get yours today!

Future of Work in Canada: Emerging Trends and Opportunities

What are some of the trends currently defining the new world of work in Canada, and what does our future look like? What opportunities can be seized to build more competitive, prosperous, and inclusive organizations? This mini-conference, presented in partnership with Deloitte Canada, will feature panel discussions and presentations by representatives from Deloitte, Brookfield Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Vancity, Futurpreneur, and many more.

Work in the 21st Century: Innovations in Research

Research doesn’t just live in libraries and academic papers; it has a profound impact on our day to day lives. Work in the 21st Century is a dynamic evening that showcases the SFU researchers and entrepreneurs who are leading the way in making innovative impacts in the new world of work.

Basic Income

This lecture will examine the question of basic income (BI). A neoliberal version of BI is being considered and even developed by a number of governments and institutions of global capitalism. This form of BI could enhance the supply of low wage precarious workers, by offering a public subsidy to employers, paid for by cuts to others areas of social provision.

ReframeWork

ReframeWork is a national gathering of leading thinkers and innovators on the topic of Future of Work. We will explore how Canada can lead in forming new systems for good work and identify the richest areas of opportunity for solution-building that affects broader change.

The Urban Worker Project Skillshare

The Urban Worker Project Skillshare is a day-long gathering, bringing together over 150 independent workers to lean on each other, learn from each other, get valuable expert advice, and build community. Join us!

SFU City Conversations: Making Visible the Invisible

Are outdated and stereotypical gender roles contributing to the invisible workload? What is the invisible workload anyway? Don’t miss this special edition of SFU City Conversations on intersectionality and invisible labour, presented in partnership with the Simon Fraser Student Society Women’s Centre.

Climate of Work: How Does Climate Change Affect the Future of Work

What does our changing climate have to do with the future of work? Join Embark as they explore the ways our climate impacts different industries such as planning, communications or entrepreneurship.

Symposium: Art, Labour, and the Future of Work

One of the key distinguishing features of Western modernity is that the activity of labour has always been at the heart of our self-understanding. Work defines who we are. But what might we do in a world without work? Join SFU’s Institute for the Humanities for a symposium on art, aesthetics, and self-understanding.

Worker Writers and the Poetics of Labour

If you gave a worker a pen, what would they write? What stories would they tell, and what experiences might they share? Hear poetry about what it is to work in the 21st century directly from participants of the Worker Writers School at this free public poetry reading.

Creating a Diverse and Resilient Economy in Metro Vancouver

This panel conversation event will focus on the future of employment in Metro Vancouver, and planning for the employment lands that support the regional economy. What are the trends and issues related to employment in various sectors in Metro Vancouver, and how does land use planning, regulation, and market demand affect the future of work regionally?

Preparing Students for the Future World of Work

This event, hosted by CACEE Canada West and SFU Career and Volunteer Services, will feature presentations and discussions on how post-secondary institutions can prepare students for the future of work.

Work and Purpose Later in Life

How is the changing world of work affecting older adults? And what role should work play in our lives, anyway? This special Philosophers’ Cafe will address questions of retirement, purpose, and work for older adults.

Beyond Bitcoin: Blockchain and the Future of Work

Blockchain technology is making headlines. Enthusiastic or skeptic, the focus of this dialogue will be to better understand key concepts and to explore the wide-ranging applications of distributed ledgers and the implications for business here in BC and in the global economy.

Building Your Resilience

Being a university student can be stressful. This interactive event will share key strategies for enhancing your resilience and well-being, that will support your success now and in your future career.

We may not be working because of robots (no mention of automation in the SFU descriptions?) but we sure will talk about work-related topics. Sarcasm aside, it’s good to see this interest in work and in public discussion although I’m deeply puzzled by SFU’s decision to seemingly ignore technology, except for blockchain. Thank goodness for WCTBC. At any rate, I’m often somewhat envious of what goes on elsewhere so it’s nice to see this level of excitement and effort here in Vancouver.

Café Scientifique Vancouver talk on January 30, 2018 and a couple of February 2018 art/sci events in Toronto

Vancouver

This could be a first for Café Scientifique Vancouver. From a January 28, 2018 Café Scientifique Vancouver announcement (received via email)

This is a reminder that our next café with biotech entrepreneur Dr.Andrew Tait (TUESDAY, JANUARY 30TH [2018] at 7:30PM) in the back room of YAGGER&#39;S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender).

COMBINING TRADITIONAL NATURAL MEDICINES WITH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: UNVEILING THE POTENTIAL OF THE MANDARIN ORANGE PEEL

The orange peel is something most of us may think of as a throw-away compost item, but it is so much more. Travel back in time 9,000 years to China, where orange peel was found in the first fermented alcoholic beverage, and return to today, where mandarin orange peel remains one of China’s top selling herbs that promotes digestion. Now meet Tait Laboratories Inc., a company that was founded based on one chemistry Ph.D. student’s idea, that mandarin orange peel has the potential to reverse incurable neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis. You will learn about the company’s journey through a scientific lens, from its early days to the present, having developed a mandarin orange peel product sold across Canada in over 1,000 stores including 400 Rexall pharmacies. You will leave with a basic understanding of how herbal products like the company’s mandarin orange peel-based product are developed and brought to market in Canada, and about the science that is required to substantiate health claims on this and other exciting new botanical products.

Bio:

Dr. Andrew Tait is the founder of Tait Laboratories Inc., a company devoted to developing natural medicines from agricultural bi-products. After a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.Sc. in Chemistry from Concordia University (Montreal), he completed a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the
University of British Columbia [UBC].

Inspired by his thesis work on multiple sclerosis, he subsequently identified Traditional Chinese Medicines as having potential to treat a wide range of chronic diseases; he founded the company while finishing his graduate studies.

In 2012, he was invited to Ottawa to be awarded the NSERC [{Canada} Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council] Innovation Challenge Award, for successfully translating his Ph.D. research to an entrepreneurial venture. In 2014, he was awarded the BC Food Processors Association “Rising Star” award.

Dr. Tait is a regularly invited speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and the science supporting natural health products; he was keynote speaker in 2012 at the Annual Symposium of the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine (Vancouver) and in 2016 at the
Functional Foods and Natural Health Products Graduate Research Symposium (Winnipeg).

Supported by the Futurpreneur Canada, the Bank of Development of Canada, the UBC’s Entrepreneurship@UBC program, and the NSERC  and NRC  [{Canada} National Research Council] Industry Research Assistance Program (IRAP), he works with industrial and academic researchers developing safe, affordable, and clinically proven medicines. He successfully launched MS+ Mandarin Skin PlusÒ, a patent-pending digestive product now on shelf in over 1000 pharmacies and health food stores across Canada, including 400 Rexall pharmacies.

Dr. Tait mentors young companies as an Entrepreneur in Residence at both SFU [Simon Fraser University] Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection and also the Health Tech Innovation Hub and he also volunteers his time to mentor students of the Student Biotechnology Network.

Lest it be forgotten, many drugs and therapeutic agents are based on natural remedies; a fact often ignored in the discussion about drugs and natural remedies. In any event, I am surprised this talk is being hosted by Café Scientifique Vancouver which has tended to more ‘traditional’ (i.e., university academic) presentations without any hint of ‘alternative’ or ‘entrepreneurial’ aspects. I wonder if this is the harbinger of new things to come from the Café Scientifique Vancouver community.

Meanwhile, interested parties can find out more about Tait Laboratories on their company website. They are selling one product at this time (from the MS+ [Mandarin Skin Plus] product webpage,

MS+™ (Mandarin Skin Plus) is a revolutionary natural health product that aids with digestion and promotes gastrointestinal health. It is a patent-pending proprietary extract based on dry-aged mandarin orange peel, an ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine. This remedy has been safely used for centuries to relieve bloating, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, upset stomach, cough with phlegm. Experience ULTIMATE DIGESTIVE RELIEF and top gastrointestinal health for only about a dollar a day!

Directions: take one capsule twice a day, up to six capsules per day. Swallow capsule directly OR dissolve powder in water.
60 vegan capsules for ~ 1 month supply

I would have liked to have seen a list of research papers and discussion of human clinical trials regarding their ‘digestive’ product. Will Tait be discussing his research and results into what seems to be a new direction (i.e., the use of mandarin skin peel-derived therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases)?

I don’t think I’m going to make it to the talk but should anyone who attends care to answer the question, please feel free to add a comment.

ArtSci Salon in Toronto

2018 is proving to be an active year for the ArtSci Salon folks in Toronto. They’ve just finished hosting a January 24-25, 2018 workshop and January 26, 2018 panel discussion on the gene-editing tool CRISPR/CAS9 (see my January 10, 2018 posting for a description).

Now they’ve announced another workshop and panel discussion on successive nights in February, the topic being: cells. From a January 29, 2018 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email), Note: The panel discussion is listed first, then the workshop, then the artists’ biographies,

FROM CELL TO CANVAS: CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS OF THE MICROSCOPIC [panel discussion]

From the complex forms of the cell to the colonies created by the microbiota; from the undetectable chemical reactions activated by enzymes and natural processes to the environmental information captured through data visualization, the five local and international artists presenting tonight have developed a range of very diverse practices all inspired by the invisible, the undetectable and the microscopic.

We invite you to an evening of artist talks and discussion on the creative process of exploring the microscopic and using living organisms in art, on its potentials and implication for science and its popular dissemination, as well as on its ethics.

WITH:
Robyn Crouch
Mellissa Fisher
JULIA KROLIK
SHAVON MADDEN
TOSCA TERAN

FRIDAY, FEB 9, 2018
6:00-8:00 PM
THE FIELDS INSTITUTE
222 COLLEGE STREET,
RM 230

[Go to this page for access to registration]

FROM CELL TO CANVAS: CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS OF THE MICROSCOPIC [workshop]

THE EVENT WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A WORKSHOP BY: MELLISSA FISHER, SHAVON MADDEN AND JULIA KROLIK
FEB. 10, 2018
11:00AM-5:00PM
AT HACKLAB,
1266 Queen St West

[Go to this page for access to registration]

Workshop:

Design My Microbiome

Artist Mellissa Fisher invites participants to mould parts of her body in agar to create their own microbial version of her, alongside producing their own microbial portrait with painting techniques.

Cooking with the Invasive

Artist Shavon Madden invites participants to discuss invasive species like garlic mustard and cook invasive species whilst exploring, do species which we define and brand as invasive simply have no benefits?

Intoduction to Biological Staining

Artist & Scientist Julia Krolik invites participants to learn about 3 different types of biological staining and have a chance to try staining procedures.

BIOS:

ROBYN CROUCH
The symbolic imagery that comes through Robyn’s work invites one’s gaze inward to the cellular realms. There, one discovers playful depictions of chemical processes; the unseen lattice upon which our macro­cosmic world is constructed. Technological advancements create windows into this molecular realm, and human consciousness acts as the interface between the seen and the unseen worlds. In her functional ceramic work, the influence of Chinese and Japanese tea ceremony encourages contem­plation and appreciation of a quiet
moment. The viewer-participant can lose their train of thought while meandering through geometry and biota, con­nected by strands of double-helical DNA. A flash of recognition, a momentary mirror.

MELLISSA FISHER
Mellissa Fisher is a British Bio Artist based in Kent. Her practice explores the invisible world on our skin by using living organisms and by creating sculptures made with agar to show the public what the surface of our skin really looks like. She is best known for her work with bacteria and works extensively with collaborators in microbiology and immunology. She has exhibited an installation _ “Microbial Me”_with Professor Mark Clements and Dr Richard Harvey at The Eden Project for their permanent exhibition _“The Invisible You: The Human
Microbiome”._The installation included a living portrait in bacteria of the artists face as well as a time-lapse film of the sculpture growing.

JULIA KROLIK
Julia Krolik is a creative director, entrepreneur, scientist and award-winning artist. Her diverse background enables a rare cross-disciplinary empathy, and she continuously advocates for both art and science through several initiatives. Julia is the founder of Art the Science, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating artist residencies in scientific research laboratories to foster Canadian science-art culture and expand scientific knowledge communication to benefit the public. Through her consulting agency Pixels and Plans, Julia works with private and public organizations, helping them with strategy, data visualization and knowledge mobilization, often utilizing creative technology and skills-transfer workshops.

SHAVON MADDEN
Shavon Madden is a Brampton based artist, specializing in sculptural, performance and instillation based work exploring the social injustices inflicted on the environment and its creatures. Her work focuses on challenging social-environmental and political ethics, through the embodied experience and feelings of self. She graduated from the University of Toronto Specializing in Art and Art History, along with studies in Environmental Science and will be on her way to Edinburgh for her MFA. Shavon has had works shown at Shelly Peterson, the Burlington Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Mississauga, among many others. Website: www.greenheartartistry.com [4]

TOSCA TERAN
Working with metal for over 30+ years, Tosca was introduced to glass as an artistic medium in 2004. Through developing bodies of work incorporating metal + glass Tosca has been awarded scholarships at The Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School and The Penland school of Crafts. Her work has been featured at SOFA New York, Culture Canada,
Metalsmith Magazine, The Toronto Design Exchange, and the Memphis Metal Museum. She has been awarded residencies at Gullkistan, Nes, and the Ayatana Research Program. A long-term guest artist instructor at the Ontario Science Centre, Tosca continues to explore materials, code, BioArt, SciArt and teach Metal + Glass courses out of her studio in Toronto.

It seems that these February events and the two events with Marta de Menezes are part of the FACTT (transdisciplinary and transnational festival of art and science) Toronto, from the FACTT Toronto webpage,

FACTT Toronto – Festival of Art & Science posted in: blog, events

The Arte Institute, in partnership with Cultivamos Cultura and ArtSi Salon, has the pleasure to announce FACTT – Festival of Art & Science in Toronto.

The Festival took place in Lisbon, New York, Mexico, Berlin and will continue in Toronto.
Exhibition: The Cabinet Project/ Art Sci Salon / FACTT

Artists:

Andrew Carnie
Elaine Whittaker
Erich Berger
Joana Ricou
Ken Rinaldo
Laura Beloff and Maria Antonia Gonzalez Valerio
Marta de Menezes and Luís Graça
Pedro Cruz

Dates: Jan 26- feb 15 [2018 {sic}]

Where: Meet us on Jan 26 [2018] in the Lobby of the Physics Department, 255 Huron Street
University of Toronto
When: 4:45 PM

You may want to keep an eye on the ArtSci Salon website although I find their posting schedule a bit erratic. Sometimes, I get email notices for events that aren’t yet listed on their website.

Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) and its president’s (Andrew Petter) dream colloquium: women in technology

I’m a little late with this event news (sadly,. I only received the information yesterday, Sept. 20, 2017) but even with two event dates already past (happily, videos for the two events have been posted), there are still several “Women in Technology” events to attend or view live according to the Simon Fraser University (SFU) President’s Dream Colloquium: Women in Technology; Attaining, Retaining, and Promoting Diverse Talent’s webpage text by Wan Yee Lok,

Women in Technology: Attracting, Retaining and Promoting Diverse Talent is a seven-part public [emphasis mine] lecture series beginning on Sept. 13. Key experts from around the world will identify challenges to gender equity and discover solutions for improving recruitment, retention and leadership options for women.

Diversity and inclusion are critical to high-tech corporate success. Yet statistics reveal that less than 25 per cent of those working in the science, technology, engineering and math sectors (STEM) are women, and that they earn seven-and-a-half per cent less than men.

“There is a crucial need to achieve gender equality in the tech sector, especially at a time when it is growing faster than ever,” says colloquium organizer Lesley Shannon, an SFU engineering science professor. She holds the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

“We hope the colloquium will help people engage in a multidisciplinary dialogue about the value of creating more space in technology for women and other under-represented groups.”

Six of the lectures are free, except for Cathy O’Neil’s lecture on Oct. 26.

The President’s Dream Colloquium schedule is as follows:

Sept. 13: SFU KEY presents: We the Data
Juliette Powell, founder, Turing AI and WeTheData.org, author of 33 Million People in the Room

Sept. 14: Diversity 101: The Case for Diversity in Technology
Maria Klawe, president, Harvey Mudd College

Sept. 21: Women in Media and Advertising
Shari Graydon, catalyst, Informed Opinions

Oct. 12: Social Psychological Phenomena
Steven Spencer, the Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Chair in Social Psychology, Ohio State University

Oct. 26: Gender and Bias in Algorithmic Design
Cathy O’Neil, author, Weapons of Math Destruction [tickets are $5 for students; $15 for the rest of us; go here to buy tickets, click on green button in the upper right, below the banner; the event will be held at SFU’s Harbour Centre Vancouver location]

Nov 9: Gendered Language
Danielle Gaucher, associate professor, Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg

Nov. 23: Women as Leaders and Innovators
Jo Miller, founder, Be Leaderly

Lectures will be webcast live and available on the President’s Dream Colloquium website, www.sfu.ca/womenintech.

SFU engineering science professor Lesley Shannon is the colloquium organizer as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

 

As a part of the colloquium, students can enroll in a graduate course covering a broad range of topics related to diversity in the technology sector. Shannon says the course will focus on women and their role in technology as well as issues that affect other under‐represented groups.

“I hope the course will establish a foundation for future managers, supervisors, sponsors, mentors and others wanting to pursue leadership roles to work towards creating a level playing field in technology and other industries,” says Shannon.

The colloquium course (SAR 897) is still accepting students. Visit go.sfu.ca to enroll.

A reminder after the last few paragraphs of the event text, you don’t actually have to be a student to attend the lectures although for anyone who doesn’t want to make the trek up the hill (SFU is located on a hill in Burnaby, BC) for the majority of the events, there is the livestream video. For those who can’t make the scheduled times, given that both the Sept. 13 and Sept. 14, 2017 event videos have been posted, they are being pretty quick about uploading the videos afterwards.

I have mentioned Cathy O’Neil here a couple of times, more substantively in a Feb. 28, 2017 posting about a major’ big data’ collaboration between the province of BC and the state of Washington (for Cathy O’Neil, scroll down to the subsection titled: Algorithms and big data) and briefly at the end in a May 24, 2017 posting that was chiefly concerned with bias in algorithms.

Science Alive! is everywhere; #AskACurator is Sept. 13, 2017; and more

Researching a piece sometimes leads you to unexpected corners on the internet. This started with an announcement about #AskACurator on Twitter and Instagram in the August 30, 2017 issue (received via email) of What’s Up @ The Museums (from Ingenium or what was known as the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation).

Science Alive!

In trying to pad out the one announcement that might be of interest to people who don’t live near one of Canada’s science and technology museums, i.e., anyone who lives outside of Ottawa, Ontario, I checked out their fairly new (the first video in the series was posted in February 2016) science podcast series, Science Alive!

Despite reservations (I have very little interest in space exploration and even less in the Canadarm), I found the first video in the series quite engaging,

Of course, I had more questions but that’s the point o what is intended to be both an information and promotional video designed to attract visitors.

But, this is not the only Science Alive. Simon Fraser University (SFU) has a student-run, not-for-profit organization known as Science AL!VE, which runs summer camps and weekend clubs in British Columbia. (This SFU organization is part of Actua, “Canada’s largest STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] outreach organization. They have annual reports stretching back to 2010/11.)

There’s also a Science Alive with Living Things in Michigan, US and a science alive! in New Zealand, which “is a not-for-profit trust promoting science and technology worldwide.”

I had to stop there but there are more ‘science alive’ programmes out there.

#AskACurator

Here’s the announcement that started my Science Alive! adventure, from the August 30, 2017 issue (received via email) of What’s Up @ The Museums,

#AskACurator
September 13, 2017
September is more than back to school time – it’s Ask a Curator Time! Our Museums are excited to once again be among more than 1200 museums from 52 countries participating in #AskACurator Day on Wednesday September 13, 2017! Have a question for our curators?

Send your questions to @SciTechMuseum, @avspacemuseum or @AgMuseum!

#AskACurator is being organized by someone called Mar Dixon. Her website‘s About Me page (from the homepage, click on About Me)  lists current and past projects only. I can certainly appreciate why she might have done that. (IMO) Describing your education, past employers, achievements, etc., i.e., standard biographical information can get boring but the projects you’re working on or have worked on and are passionate about? Well, for some us it’s all about the work.

Here’s more about the Sept. 13, 2017 #AskACurator day on Twitter and Instagram,

This is the list of all museums who signed up so far. It is in alphabetical order by country. I’m updating this page every few days. If your museum isn’t on listed, use the sign up form.  If you are listed and can NOT take part in 2017 please contact me at mar@mardixon.com or @MarDixon on Twitter.

Please note:  @AskACurator is also on Instagram AND Twitter so feel free to use the tag on there!

How to take Part: Participants  Want to know how to Take Part? There’s an article for that! (Please note the date has changed!)

How to take Part: Museums  You might want to tell your followers the time your curator will be available.  Some museums write it on their events page, others leave it open to see what questions they receive.  However, to get your name out there – it helps to jump in to general questions and not just wait to be asked a specific question.  Some people will use the hashtag to ask questions such as how to know what to collect, what skills are needed, what are the unknowns of being a curator etc.  We also have a few #Askacurator people who have questions like ‘do you have a teddy bear in your collection’ or ‘what’s the funniest thing you heard in your museum’ etc.

Last updated August 29 2017
Museums taking part: 1421

Countries: 54

For anyone who’s never dealt with a curator, you might find this video where curator David Pantalony discusses a giant globe and what they did and didn’t include on the globe from Ingenium’s Science Alive! series informative,

Beakerhead Sept. 13 – 17, 2017 in Calgary

Here’s more about this year’s iteration of the event (from the Beakerhead attend page),

Mark your calendars for September 13 – 17, 2017 when Beakerhead takes over Calgary with a smash up of art, science and engineering both indoors and out! From citywide, pop-up engineered art galleries and flame-spitting, larger-than-life public art encounters to the entertaining science of … everything, there’s something for everyone!

With over 60 events and programs to choose from, Beakerhead has something for everyone – whether you define yourself as “creative” or “technical” in nature. In 2016 over 130,000 people took part, including a few actual astronauts!

In 2017, Beakerhead celebrates the ups and downs of experimentation and invention!
A special Canada 150 version of Beakerhead will see Calgary’s downtown core become a canvas for a larger-than-life interactive experience where participants will navigate to and from Beakerhead encounters å la Snakes and Ladders while we celebrate the ups and downs that mark the wild and bumpy ride of invention and creativity.

Events, experiments and programs that make up the five day spectacle include:

  • Snakes and Ladders: An interactive experience that encourages exploration of the city (and human ingenuity) through delightfully engineered public art installations.
  • Workshops and talks: explore the science of scent, play with your food, immerse yourself in the laboratory of life!
  • Four to Six: A street party on Stephen Avenue where science gets social.
  • Ticketed events: Command to be entertained by world famous (and soon-to-be-famous) inventors, scientists, performers (and maybe even an animal or two!)
  • Ingenuity challenges: In that past, Beakerhead has pit catapult teams against each other – this year expect a new high-reaching competition!
  • Community programs: Beakerhead becomes a stage for over 100 collaborating organizations, both large and small, to show off their discoveries and creativity through events and programs of their own. Learn how you can take part, too!
  • School tours, talks, and challenges: Beakerhead engages 25,000 students each year.

The Beakerhead events page is overwhelming and I suggest the unitiated scrol down to the Highlights section where you can find out more about the organization, find a programme announcement which allows you to orient yourself (somewhat), and more.

European Science Open Forum (ESOF) 2018

This science shindig comes along every two years. The last one was in Manchester, UK in 2016 and now it’s time to gear up for Toulouse, France in 2018 (from the ESOF July 2017 newsletter received via email),

ESOF 2018 in Toulouse.
Save the date! One year to go.

The next EuroScience Open Forum, ESOF 2018 will be held in Toulouse, France, 9-14 July 2018 in just one year from now!
Save the dates and plan your visit to the European City of Science 2018, with the ESOF 2018 motto: « Sharing Science: towards new horizons! »

With more than 300 sessions proposed in the first call for scientific sessions on 10 themes and 4 cross-cutting domains covering all sciences, the programme promises to be attractive and a major crossroad of debates on the future of science and how to share it.

Keep an eye on ongoing and future calls: www.esof.eu

Key dates:
Call for Scientific sessions: February -June 2017
Call for Science in the City Festival initiatives: June – September 2017
Call for Careers & Science to Business sessions: July – October 2017
Call for posters and interactive presentations: October 2017 – January 2018

Consider that
– ESOF is the largest interdisciplinary science event in Europe.
– ESOF is a cross-road for exchange between scientists, students, policy makers, innovators, industry managers and science media.
– 2018 is a key year for the preparation of the next framework programme [major seven-year European Union science funding programme; the current such programme is Horizon 2020, which stated in 2013] for research and innovation of the European Union and key discussions will occur at ESOF 2018.

And that
– Toulouse, the Capital of Occitania, in Southern France and the Capital of aeronautics and space research will surprise you with the many facets of its culture and scientific domains.
– And is both a historical and modern lively City, home of 120 000 students!

We are eager to share this event with you and are sure you will make it a wonderful success!

Dr Anne Cambon-Thomsen
ESOF 2018 Champion

You can find out more about ESOF on the website’s About page,

ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) is the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe. It is dedicated to scientific research and innovation and offers a unique framework for interaction and debate for scientists, innovators, policy makers, business people and the general public.

Created in 2004 by EuroScience, this biennial European forum brings together over 4 000 researchers, educators, business actors, policy makers and journalists from all over the world to discuss breakthroughs in science. More than 40% of the participants are students and young researchers.

The 8th edition of ESOF will take place in Toulouse, France, from 9 till 14 July 2018.

ESOF figures

4000+ delegates from 80+ countries
400+ journalists and science communicators
150+ conferences, workshops and scientific sessions
200+ events open to the general public, attended by more than 35 000 participants

What to expect at ESOF?

Taking part in ESOF is a unique opportunity to:

  • further knowledge on the challenges and breakthroughs in research, innovation and their relation to society;
  • create links, exchange and debate with leaders of the scientific community worldwide in an interdisciplinary context;
  • communicate the latest news on scientific research and innovation to an international audience;
  • develop a network in view of building a research career.

Find out more about ESOF and EuroScience: www.euroscience.org

I can’t find an overarching theme for the event or any promotional videos but there is this: Robots and humans : How do they cooperate ? 5Th preparatory meeting ESOF 2018 video (running time: 1 hour and 41 mins.) The title is if nothing else an intriguing hint of what ESOF 2018 may hold.

I also checked out the Science in the City Festival (formerly City of Science) and found information for this previously mentioned call,

Parallel to the EuroScience Open Forum, the Science in the City Festival will invest the city and its surroundings.

As a free event, Science in the City Festival is aimed at people of all ages who are curious about science and innovation.

If you wish to be part of the Science in the City programme, please send your proposals for our call for initiatives by filling this online form.

Deadline: 30th September 2017

Call for initiatives for the Science in the City Festival(PDF)

The online form lists a set of ESOF 2018 themes or stems or topics,

If it helps, Toulouse is known as ‘la Ville Rose’ or Pink City.

That’s it for this roundup of ‘sciencish’ bits.