Science communication is often understood as the work of explaining science to people outside science—through journalism, education, public outreach, policy communication, and other forms of engagement. All of this is science communication. But it is only part of the field.
Science communication also includes the enormous amount of communication that makes science itself possible: researchers sharing findings and data, collaborating across disciplines, publishing and reviewing research, deciding what questions to study, communicating evidence to policymakers, transferring discoveries into practice, and building the relationships and systems through which knowledge moves.
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Science is remarkably good at producing knowledge. It is not always as good at sharing that knowledge, connecting it across boundaries, or organizing people and institutions around what we know.
Many of the biggest problems facing science today are therefore communication problems—not simply problems of explaining research more clearly, but of helping people work together. Researchers operate in different disciplines and institutions. Governments, universities, funders, publishers, companies, and civil society organizations have different priorities and ways of working. Important knowledge can remain trapped in silos, while problems that require coordinated action stretch across sectors, borders, and fields of expertise.
SCI was founded in 2011 on the premise that improving science communication can improve science itself. Our early work focused largely on strengthening the field of science communication and improving the systems through which research is shared. Over time, our work has evolved. Today, we focus increasingly on large, complex problems where better communication, stronger connections, and sustained cooperation can make a meaningful difference.
Our role is not to have all the answers. It is to identify problems that no single organization or discipline can solve alone, bring together the people who need to be part of the solution, and create the networks, processes, and shared frameworks that help them move forward.
This approach has taken SCI from a decade of work on open science through the Open Scholarship Initiative, to building a global community around carbon dioxide removal through CDRANet and helping governments communicate and cooperate through the Vancouver Process. Our work on disinformation is developing along the same lines.
The subjects change. The underlying challenge does not: helping science—and the many communities that depend on it—work together more effectively on problems that matter.
Glenn Hampson is the founder and executive director of the Science Communication Institute, and the founder and program director for SCI’s largest projects, the Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI), and the Carbon Dioxide Removal Action Network (CDRANet). In his previous roles over the last 30 years, Glenn has worked in senior research communications roles for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, and was also the founder and president of the Castle Pacific Publishing Company, and managing editor and webmaster for the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation. Glenn is a frequent international speaker on open science issues, and has written widely on science communication.
SCI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity established in 2011 and incorporated in Washington State. Our center of operations is Seattle (we don’t maintain any physical office locations; our network operates virtually).
SCI receives funding for its projects from a variety of government, foundation, institutional, corporate and individual sponsors and donors (see our project sites for details, such as osiglobal.org). This project funding passes through SCI with no overhead charge. Funders do not influence our agenda nor do SCI’s opinions necessarily reflect the opinions of funders or their assigns (see our legal page for a disclaimer).
SCI’s legal documents and most recent federal tax filings are linked below. For more information, please see SCI’s Platinum-rated profile on Candid. For additional annual reports, please see the SCI website archives.
SCI’s board of directors has varied in size over the years between five and 15 members. Our board members represent a wide variety of research communication areas, and serve terms of two years minimum. We are honored to be working with these distinguished leaders on achieving our FY 2024-26 goals:
Jason Steinhauer is the bestselling author of “History Disrupted,” examining how social media shapes what we know about the past. He is a Global Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson Center, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, former founding director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest, and a Presidential Counselor of the National WWII Museum. Jason has traveled extensively with the US Department of State to facilitate exchanges between government officials, scholars and students on the effects of the Internet and social media on public understanding of news, history and information.
Sonia Vasconcelos is an associate professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she teaches science communication, research methodology, and research ethics and integrity. Sonia coordinates the university’s Professional Masters Program in Science Education, and Advisory Council for Research Ethics, and is a former member of the Research Integrity Committee of the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development. Sonia is also active in many other science communication related activities around the world.
Patrick Herron is a leading AI scientist with broad experience building innovative natural language processing models across a wide variety of industries. He is the author of several books on technology, scientometrics, and econometrics, and formerly a Senior Research Professor at Duke University, where he taught and conducted cross-disciplinary research on language models, breakthrough technology detection, and social network analysis.
Liz Allen is a Nature and PLOS alum with over 30 years in academic publishing, Liz has deep experience developing and introducing novel open access business models. She has also led the launch of many science journals, magazines, events and digital products and services. Liz is a fellow at the UN SDG Publisher’s Compact and is on the board of nonprofit Phoenix Bioinformatics, which specializes in research data.
Donald Samulack has been deeply involved in a wide range of science publishing management work for over 25 years. Formerly the President of US operations and Head of Global Stakeholder Engagement for Cactus Communications, Donald has been actively involved in supporting the publication needs of academic, non-profit, and commercial publishing communities, and raising the level of awareness and professionalism of good publication practices worldwide. Since early 2023, he has been serving as a consultant for Capital Media Group and other clients.