Designing Awards to Reward Inclusive SciComm
Channel: MetcalfInstitute
Date: 25/01/2022

Rose Hendricks (​American Society for Cell Biology)

Niveen AbiGhannam (The University of Texas at Austin)

Emily Howell (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Timothy Eatman (​​Rutgers University-Newark)

Anthony Dudo (Associate Professor and Program Director of Science Communication)

This session was offered as part of the 2021 Inclusive SciComm Symposium. For more information, visit https://inclusivescicomm.org/2021symposium-about/

Abstract: The Inclusive SciComm (ISC) landscape study identified the lack of institutional reward infrastructure as a key challenge to ISC. To better understand the existing engagement rewards systems, our team conducted a landscape analysis of 78 awards offered by scientific societies for science communication, public engagement, advocacy, and engaged scholarship. Our goal is to examine the extent to which existing awards contribute to culture change, as opposed to reinforcing exclusionary structures and cultures that disincentivize ISC. We found that it is rare for awards to prioritize inclusivity or the traits of ISC (intentionality, reflexivity, and reciprocity). Moreover, engagement is vaguely and inconsistently defined, which further complicates the understanding of what is being rewarded. This summer, we will conduct interviews with award recipients and granting organizations to further understand existing reward structures.

We will discuss how awards, in participants’ experiences, either incentivize ISC or contribute to harmful structures and cultures (or both). We will then guide an activity to envision what it could take to redesign awards to intentionally reward ISC.

We synthesize ideas and recommendations from this session to co-produce with interested participants a publicly accessible report, aimed especially for sharing with science societies and institutions. We intend for the workshop and report to catalyze conversations about opportunities to improve awards as tools to encourage a culture of ISC.

This session is sponsored by the Rita Allen Foundation.