Abstract:

In 2018, the Observatory of Social Responsibility and Higher Education Institutions (HEI) identified the socially responsible management of the production and dissemination of knowledge as one of the four fundamental dimensions for a socially responsible action by HEI, with the aim of promoting science for all, as well as to contribute to the social understanding of reality.

Following the same logic, the European Union has adopted, in its Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation (R&I), the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which can be understood as an R&I approach that seeks to anticipate and assess potential societal implications and expectations in order to achieve more inclusive and sustainable R&I processes through the implementation of 5 transversal axes: the engagement of the public and multiple actors in R&I , open access to scientific results, the consideration for gender issues and ethical aspects, as well as the promotion, at formal and informal levels, of scientific education (SE).

Taking into account three axes of RRI (Public engagement, Open Access, and SE), a Research Centre (RC) in Education has been designing its Social Responsibility strategy, aiming at contributing to Citizens´ SE. Specifically, this strategy includes: the management of the RC’s own official website and social media pages, namely in Facebook and Twitter, the dissemination of a weekly newsletter, and the presence in regional media, namely through the publication of a bi-weekly column in a newspaper and a weekly podcast in a radio station.

In this communication, we will focus on the presence of the RC in regional media and we will present an analysis on:
(i) the diversity of topics addressed in these two science communication initiatives currently underway, and
(ii) the trend of the interactions with these these two sections in the RC’s social networks.

The results indicate that the topics addressed by the researchers are, as expected, focused on Education, but also cover a wide diversity of themes, linking Education to Knowledge, Science, School Context, Higher Education, Family, Languages, Technology, Health, among others. Researchers tend to present scientific projects in which they are involved, as well as contribute to the discussion of current themes relevant to the community, such as the current theme of COVID-19, by exploring its relation and possible implications regarding (research in) Education. Also, our analysis shows that the number of interactions within the RC’s social media pages, in terms of the column and the podcast, has been increasing, namely regarding the numbers of views and shares.

These initiatives play an important role towards the promotion of Citizens’ SE, namely in a local/regional context. Following an RRI approach, the RC promotes Scientific Education by covering a considerable diversity of topics within its media presence, promotes Open Access by making the items available free of charge in its online spaces, as well as of the university and media partners (journal and radio), which enables their wider dissemination, and seeks to promote the public engagement with the scientific themes that are addressed.

With this study, we aim to contribute to the discussion about the role of RC towards the promotion of RRI, and we intend to disseminate and discuss good practices concerning the promotion of citizens’ SE through regional media.

Keywords:

Scientific Education, Responsible Research and Innovation strategy, Research Centre, Education.