Motivations and barriers for young scientists to engage with society: perspectives from South Africa

ABSTRACT

Our qualitative interviews with 16 early-career South African researchers investigated how they view public engagement and its role in their research careers, as well as the motivations, challenges and institutional factors that shape their engagement efforts. We situate our findings in the context of high societal diversity and inequality in South Africa. We found that young researchers see public engagement predominantly as a tool to educate the public, with limited awareness of dialogic and participative approaches. While the researchers saw benefit in participating in public engagement, they disagreed on whether public engagement is an integral part of a scientist’s professional role. Personal enjoyment was a key motivator for engagement, but they also wanted to make a difference in their communities by helping to address knowledge gaps. Time constraints, competing work demands and a perceived lack of skills were barriers, as well as a shortage of institutional support and engagement opportunities. The young researchers were eager to have access to engagement training and felt that public engagement deserves more recognition in their work environments. Based on this, we proposed recommendations for institutions that may help to create a supportive environment for early-career scientists who wish to participate in public engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Public communication of science
• public engagement with science
• early-career scientists
• motivations and barriers

Acknowledgements

Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the author(s) and the NRF does not accept any liability in this regard.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics clearance

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee: Social Behavioural and Education Research (REC: SBE) at Stellenbosch University on 6 February 2019, with the Project Number: 8915.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Gender is not reported per individual due to the limitations imposed by the ethics approval for this project, but it can be noted that the study had an even number of male and female participants – namely eight of each gender.

Additional information

Funding

This work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation of South Africa [grant number 93097].