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A delicate balance . . .

One reason we write about research is to tell the public about new discoveries that might improve life in some large or small way. And sometimes, that is a potential product, an invention by a faculty member, an invention that a private business might want to take to market, and an invention that could earn money for the university.

Chemistry When that happens, reporting the benefits of the science can become complicated.

A recent example was a simple tool that might be replaced by a specially designed product – the outgrowth of a recent study. The product was being licensed and commercialized by an outside company when the research was published. But the nature of the new product, and the experimental tool it replaced, created a complex situation.

If the simple tool produced favorable results in the experiment, did we really need a new product? Of course, the product carried benefits that the simple tool couldn’t provide. It was designed for a specific purpose, with proper materials. It was one of a kind and clinical studies had proved it would work.

The institution’s conflict became apparent when we wrote about this research. Was it possible, we were asked, to explain the research findings, but not mention the simple tool used in the experiment? “No,” we said, “we can’t omit such a critical detail from a news release when the tool was an integral part of the study.” The simple tool was also named and appeared in images in the published paper. Any reader of the study might interpret the omission as evidence that we let the potential for financial benefit influence our reporting of news.

Currency And selectively omitting information is a risky behavior for a public institution.

On the other hand, describing the simple tool in the story might threaten the commercialization process, we were told.

We wondered how to divide this baby.

In the end, we dropped the story and never distributed it to the news media. Our need to insulate our reporting from perceived commercial influence was the deciding factor. But at the same time, we abandoned discussion on a promising technology transfer opportunity.

It was frustrating, and we probably missed lots of media coverage about a juicy research finding. But public institutions have an equal need to capitalize on gaining potential revenue from their research.

In the end, what’s best for the institution and the public probably won out. And we can’t really argue with that.__Emily Caldwell

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NASA’s Convoluted Path . . .

I need to know the details.

Most people are satisfied with the 30-second news story about the latest federal report involving science — or the politics of science. Instead, I want to read the whole report, the gory details, the mountains of minutia that offer context instead of sound bites.

NASA Inspector General So when NASA’s Office of the Inspector General last month issued its two-year investigation of whether the agency tried to squelch climate scientist James Hansen and others, I ran to the PDF on the web.

While major news media posted hundreds of stories on the web — I wanted to read the actual report!

Did NASA Headquarters staff try to insure that public information on climate change issues coming from the agency aligned with — or at least was not opposed to — current Bush Administration policies? The “sound bite” answer is yes. Agency staff did try to stymie opposing views and coverage, but the apparent pattern of actions seemed restricted to a few people in NASA Headquarters’ Office of Public Affairs.

But what fascinated me was the insight the report offered into the day-to-day process by which information flows from NASA through the news media and out to the public. NASA is superb in thrilling the public with “space news.” We’re awed by what pours from the space agency — live video from the International Space Station or space shuttle, panoramas of the Martian landscape, or images of the births or deaths of stars — it’s a feast.

But these are prepared packages, well-orchestrated to support NASA when budget hearings roll around. The science surrounding controversies like global climate change doesn’t fit agency marketing nearly as well. And therein lay the problem.

At most research universities, staff science writers interview researchers, draft a story for the scientist’s review, and then distribute it to the news media. It is a simple path involving only the essential players.

But you need a roadmap to follow the cumbersome route NASA releases follow before making it to the news media. Scientists at a NASA center apparently write their own initial draft that then works its way through the center’s local public affairs officer, and then past the scientist’s two or three supervisors. After that, the draft release is shared with NASA’s central public affairs officers where both career staff and political appointees adjudge the message and decide on how it is disseminated.

Envision a large committee making homemade soup.

The best science communications requires little more than an expert with passion and a story-teller with imagination. Complex hierarchies and cumbersome processes only complicate the issues.

NASA should know better.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Climate change, Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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Taking your work home….and vice versa

When a physics professor goes home after a long day at work, she no longer has to deal with quarks, bosons or any of the other research subjects that occupy her days. But what happens when you’re a researcher who studies families? That’s when the lines between work and home get a little blurred.

Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan (right), with husband Jason and wee Charlotte. Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan is an assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State, and she knows what it’s like to have work and family lives intersect. By day, one of the things she studies is how mothers’ behavior can help determine how much fathers get involved in taking care of their infants. She has found that mothers act as “gatekeepers,” controlling how much fathers get involved in child care. This week, she has a new study out on the subject.

After a busy day of research, she goes home to her husband, Jason Sullivan, and 2-year-old daughter Charlotte and sees how her research plays out in real life.

“My husband and I joke about this all the time,” she said. “I catch myself doing things that I consider gatekeeping, or I catch myself early enough that I bite my tongue. Like when he dresses her in an outfit that I don’t think matches, or something silly like that, something that really shouldn’t bother me at all - I have to stop myself. I realize I should be glad I don’t have to be responsible for child care all the time.”

Her husband knows enough about her research that he can use it strategically, she said.

“It can be kind of a code word between us - he’ll say ‘you’re gatekeeping!’ We laugh about it.”

Schoppe-Sullivan said that she was interested in the topic before she had her child. But since Charlotte was born, she finds that her research informs what she does as a parent, but also finds that her experiences as a parent influence her research.

“My experiences as a mother have made me even more convinced gatekeeping goes on in families. If this is happening in my family - and I study this - I’m pretty sure it must be happening in other families, too.”__Jeff Grabmeier

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Astronomy, version 2.0

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is Twittering.

That’s not some mechanical malfunction — it’s super-short blogging, via the Web site Twitter. In 140 characters or less, the lander reports from the red planet. Readers “tweet” back. When someone asked whether Phoenix had used its soil analyzer, TEGA, Phoenix responded, “I’m not ready to use TEGA yet, maybe in a day or 2.”

The spacecraft’s voice actually belongs to of a staffer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But it’s fun to pretend that the tweets come from Mars.

Phoenix Mars Lander In Second Life Nearly 17,000 people are following Phoenix on Twitter, and its landing drew nearly 90 spectators in the virtual reality world Second Life. One of them, Adrienne Gauthier, felt a sense of community in that virtual world. “I was sharing it with other people instead of watching NASA TV. And the NASA people kept popping in and out and reporting what was going on.”

Gauthier is on the “new media” committee for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Committee members are in St. Louis this week for the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting.

This meeting, more than any previous, has a virtual feel. Something new is happening in astronomy, and it’s happening online.

Committee co-chair Pamela Gay, an astronomer at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville campus, is webcasting AAS events.

Astronomer Pamela Sue Gay “We have had as many or more people viewing our sessions online” as in person, Gay said. Thirty people were present Tuesday for her roundtable discussion but twice that many watched online. At her Sunday workshop, the ratio was three-to-one (40 “real” people, 120 virtual). For the press conferences, the ratio neared 10-to-one (20 real, nearly 200 virtual). Who knows who those viewers are, but they must be keenly interested in astronomy.

But the committee wants to reach everybody else. They are “infiltrating” — their own word — MySpace, Second Life, and even video games such as World of Warcraft.

As the press room closed Tuesday, Gay said she’s been so busy with this new stuff, she’s missed some parts of the meeting at large. “I’ll have to read what other people wrote to find out what happened,” she said with a laugh, typing away on her keyboard.

This may be a peek at the future of scientific meetings.__Pam Frost Gorder

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Observing the Line . . .

The front page story in the New York Times last week, and later in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is a strong reminder of how the public expects universities - and their researchers - to behave.

The headline, “At One University, Tobacco Money Is A Secret,” conjured up memories of how for years, the tobacco industry misled the country and created one of America’s great health challenges.

Secretly pairing tobacco money with university research is seen as betrayal.

The story said Virginia Commonwealth University had ignored its own institutional guidelines and accepted a grant from Philip Morris USA that prohibited researchers from publishing their work, or even from acknowledging the project.

In today’s climate, accepting any support from tobacco companies is viewed skeptically, and most institutions that consider such grants do so with a clear set of conditions in mind.

While this seems obvious, the ongoing pressure on institutions and individual researchers to secure support for their studies grows daily and it’s understandably human to wonder exactly where the line is that shouldn’t be crossed.

For Bob Killoren, head of Ohio State’s Research Foundation and arguably the guy most focused on research funding, the answers are pretty clear:

“There is a dividing line out there that we have to watch and sometimes it can be pretty narrow.”

On one hand, he says, as a land-grant public institution, our heritage includes taking the new knowledge we find to companies out in the business world.

“The question is how do we actually work with those companies?”

Setting aside issues of “intellectual property,” Killoren says that there are a handful of “non-negotiables” that the university requires of any research grant:

An agreement can’t exclude a researcher from continuing their work on a project because of any licensing agreement or such;
If graduate students are involved in the research, they have to be able to publish their findings as part of their thesis or dissertation requirements;
No agreement can give a sponsor approval over what the university can say about the research, nor can they censor the researchers in any way;
And researchers must be able to incorporate the research into what they teach students.

Guidelines like these are common and make good sense for public institutions. Problems only arise when universities or businesses forget the rules.__Earle Holland

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