OSL Day 2023: Science Communication in Service Research

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About four weeks ago, on 12 October, the OSL Day 2023 took place at JOSEPHS in Nuremberg, where we were able to gain new insights into modern science communication in service research and are now trying to implement some of them for better science communication. Participants from different areas of science and practice came together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of communicating scientific findings. MinR Dr Otto Fritz Bode from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) was also a guest this year and provided exciting insights into current developments in science communication and expectations from the ministry’s perspective.

A central element of the event was a series of presentations by doctoral students from the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, who had been working in teams for several weeks on concepts and new ideas to promote science communication. These creative approaches were presented at the OSL Day and offered inspiring insights into how universities and companies can improve science communication.

The two panel discussions that took place during the day were particularly enriching. Under the title “Participatory science communication in innovation spaces”, it became clear how important it is to actively involve the public in scientific discourse and what a crucial role interaction spaces such as JOSEPHS can play in this. Dialogue between science, business and society not only creates understanding, but also promotes new perspectives and innovation. Another exciting aspect of the future could be the addition of virtual spaces, opening up completely new possibilities for interaction and communication. The second panel focused on “Best Practices & Science Transfer into Practice”. Here it became clear that the way in which scientific knowledge is transferred into practice is crucial. The successful translation of research results into concrete instructions for practice is still a largely untapped potential. To this end, formats need to be found that bring together the knowledge from different research studies and projects and make it available to potential users in a compact and easily understandable form. The best practices presented provided valuable information on how to organise such transfer effectively.

All in all, we can look back on a day full of exciting discussions and ideas, and look forward to seeing how these will be implemented in the coming years.

More information about the Open Service Lab (OSL) at: https://openservicelab.org/