TRAINING WORKSHOPS

Deficit model approaches to science communication presume that facts speak for themselves and that providing “lay ” audiences with scientific information can dispel public opposition to science and technology.

This course, developed in partnership with SCi advisor and communications expert Riley Taitingfong of the Native Nations Institute and leading national non-profit Essential Partners, turns the deficit model on its head by providing the critical awareness and skills needed for truly effective science communication and community engagement.

Through a combination of short lectures, small group activities, and targeted communication training, trainees will gain the necessary skills to apply these learnings to a diversity of audiences. Together they explore case studies ranging from vaccine uptake to population genomics, and disability justice to cultivate ethical communication strategies that aim to connect across differences.

By the end of this course participants will be able to:

• Identify deficit model approaches to science communication and understand their shortcomings; 
• Understand the principles of participatory, community-engaged scientific research (and the challenges of implementing these in institutional settings);
• Acquire critical awareness and understanding skills that can be applied to a variety of contexts and settings, and used to effectively inform communication and engagement; 
• Apply newly developed intrapersonal and interpersonal communication skills (e.g., reflexivity, values-based dialogue) to your own scientific practice; and
• Propose transformative approaches to scientific communication and research that attend to power, incorporate diverse expertise, and promote collaboration across a variety of stakeholders. 

The Governance & Ethics of Biotechnology is a three-part series, developed in partnership with the Eli and Lilly Safra Center for Ethics. Each workshop centers on an emerging biotechnology; gene drive technologies, lifespan extension, and neural interventions. Trainees will be exposed to the complexity of ethical decision-making and to the many stakeholders that shape biotechnology design and regulation. Every module combines short pre-recorded lectures, ethical simulations, applied communication activities, and group discussions. This three-part workshop can be taken in its entirety or in part. 

By the end of this three-part workshop series participants will be able to:

• Recognize what is needed to come to safe, effective, and just decisions by evaluating empirical data, social and moral considerations, and recognizing grounds for reasonable disagreement;
• Cultivate self-awareness of personal values and biases, and understand how these influence decision-making and stakeholder interactions;
• Communicate effectively by practicing active listening and confidently engaging in conversations about values, beliefs, and ethical dilemmas across cultural and value differences;
• Navigate the practical implications of differing value systems in team dynamics, technology development, and policy-making, and apply these insights in leadership roles; and
• Justify positions and make difficult ethical decisions in scenarios involving competing and sometimes irreconcilable values.

The simulation-based workshop gives researchers the ethical training to navigate the research and communication ethics that surround population-level genetics and ensure ancestry does not get conflated with race. Participants play the role of a researcher who must navigate various settings, such as serving on the editorial board of a major medical journal grappling with whether to accept a groundbreaking paper with improper population labels, navigating lab dynamics and differences of opinions about research directions to not repeat past harms to racialized communities, and starting a spin-off company where they must navigate unexpected outcomes of clinical trials, and communicating with diverse patient populations. This three-part workshop can be taken in its entirety or in part. 

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

• Understand the history of scientific racism in genetic research and ongoing issues;
• Identify and engage with the specific legacies of scientific racism and community mistrust of their research institutions and research projects; 
• Identify individual and shared values underpinning genetic research; 
• Utilize accurate population descriptors (e.g. race), understand how these categories vary with time and place, and select the appropriate population descriptor for a given use case;
• Identify when research choices have ethical dimensions and create an organized plan (how, who, when) for navigating the ethical dimensions of genetics research, including data sharing with other groups; and
• Responsibly communicate genetics research findings.

This interactive workshop provides a high-level understanding of the relationship between science and policy, the role of values in crafting policy recommendations, and the complex ecosystem in which policy is made. Participants engage in group activities designed to enhance professional skills needed for a variety of careers, including science policy. This hands-on experience culminates in a capstone communications assignment where students will apply the concepts learned throughout the course to develop a policy pitch.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

• Understand of the ways in which science and policy interact; 
• Grapple with the role of values play in the crafting science policy;
• Consider the roles of institutional stakeholders involved in the public policy ecosystem (academia, government, industry, non-profit); and
• Gain practical skills relevant to science policy careers, with an emphasis on oral communication skills.

The workshop was developed in partnership with the Eli and Lilly Safra Center for Ethics. Trainees will be exposed to ethical governance of emerging technologies by playing the role of policymaker in a simulation around lifespan extension technologies.

By the end of this workshop series participants will be able to:

• Recognize what is needed to come to safe, effective, and just decisions by evaluating empirical data, social and moral considerations, and recognizing grounds for reasonable disagreement;
• Navigate the practical implications of differing value systems in team dynamics, technology development, and policy-making, and apply these insights in leadership roles; and
• Justify positions and make difficult ethical decisions in scenarios involving competing and sometimes irreconcilable values.

Solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management (SRM), refers to proposed techniques to intentionally modify the Earth’s climate by reflecting a small portion of incoming sunlight back into space, thereby reducing global warming. In this game-like simulation, each participant plays the role of a national delegate to the Global Geoengineering Governance Group (G4), a (fictional) new international political institution with the authority to coordinate the global response to climate change. Players will represent real countries, with realistic resources and risk exposures. They will confront unpredictable challenges that require them to balance the need to cut emissions as quickly as possible with the sometimes competing need to look out for the economic, geopolitical, and health needs of their own countries and for the interests of those nations most vulnerable now.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

• Gain a visceral sense of the inequalities different nations face when making climate policy decisions;
• Understand the ethical and geopolitical complexity of how climate policy decisions are made
• Grapple with what a just system for resolving disagreements about deploying solar geoengineering should  look like;
• Practice communication across competing interests.; and
• Navigate potential tradeoffs (both moral and material)  that are at stake when considering deploying solar geoengineering.