That means the kinds of things that I can do to manage the trust portfolio must be clearly understood by all parties. It also means I have to have the authority to do it, I have to have the power to do it, and I have to be able to be at the table when decisions that affect it are made. After all, says Borchelt, communicating science is not just a matter of getting the information out in whatever form benefits the institution. It is a commitment to public understanding of science and technology. The PIO is not a gate-keeping role, it is a dialogue inducing role that s a big difference, says Borchelt.
Institutions don t have the resources to have one person responsible for each audience.
There needs to be someone with an institutional perspective that can manage that entire portfolio in a way that best benefits all the audiences and the institution collaboratively. In closing, Borchelt highlighted current hiring practices as a serious impediment to getting trust portfolio in the right hands. Many research institutes have a tendency to pipeline people with no background in journalism or public relations into junior PR positions. Even more worrisome is the conversion of top level PIO career slots to political appointment slots. The net result is that the person who is managing this trust portfolio at the top level of the institution gets there through the experience of a political campaign, says Borchelt.