Communicating Science and Technology in Society: Issues of Public Accountability and Engagement

Ana Delicado is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) of the University of Lisbon and has a PhD in Sociology (2006). She specialises in social studies of science. She is currently vice-coordinator of the "Observa" Observatory of Environment, Territory and Society of ICS. She has coordinated competitively funded national projects on scientific associations and on acceptance of renewable energies and the ICS team in four EU-funded research projects on children and disaster risk reduction, renewable energy landscapes, and science communication. She has also conducted research on scientific museums and scientific culture, international mobility of researchers, social aspects of climate change, nuclear and fusion energy. She teaches in the University of Lisbon Master Degree in Scientific Culture and Science Dissemination and several PhD programmes (including the PhD programme on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies) and frequently engages in science outreach. She is a member of European Sociological Association (currently coordinator of the Research Network 24 Science and Technology); of EASST European Association for the Study of Science and Technology; and of the international network PCST (Public Communication of Science and Technology). She has published in relevant journals in the field: Public Understanding of Science, Journal of Science Communication, Minerva, Environmental Education Research, Science and Public Policy, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. She was awarded the publication prize of the University of Lisbon in 2018. 

Fabienne Crettaz von Roten has a PhD in mathematics and is now Senior Lecturer and Head of the Observatoire Science, Politique et Société at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research offers a symmetrical view of the relation between science and society: public perceptions of science and society (particularly, of animal experimentation and nuclear energy), and scientists’ engagement with society. Her current research is on the role of media in the formation of opinion on animal experimentation in Switzerland. She has authored and co-authored several books and book chapters in these fields, as well as numerous articles in journal including Public Understanding of Science and Science Communication. She was co-coordinator of ESA (European Sociological Association) Research Network 24 - Science and Technology / SSTNET and is currently member of the advisory board.  

Katarina Prpić has a PhD in sociology, is an awardee of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and was previously a tenured senior scientist at the Institute for Social Research, Zagreb (Croatia). Her research has focused on scientific productivity, social organization of science, science and society relations, scientists’ professional ethics, female and young researchers and on corporate science(business R&D). Her numerous publications–-of which near one-third is published in English---include authored, co-authored and edited books, book chapters as well as journal articles, some published in eminent international journals covering science and technology studies. She is a member of the editorial boards of several international social science journals. From 2007 to 2015 she was consecutively co-chairing and chairing ESA (European Sociological Association) Research Network 24 - Science and Technology / SSTNET and currently she is the network’s advisory board member. Recently, she has become an Advisory Board member of the International Centre for the Study of Research (ICSR), Elsevier.