Exploring Munich Science Communication Lab, Communication Sci For Society

My visit to the Munich Science Communication Lab (MSCL) somehow changed my perspective and gave me a new point of view of how science can be communicated to the public, not only just for the academic world. Although we didn’t have an actual tour of the MSCL’s working space, we still got to know that they work across different organizations throughout Munich, connecting with Helmholtz Munich, TUM, the Deutsches Museum, Mediaschool Bayern, etc. They bring together not only the communication science professionals but also the scholars with humanities background or even ordinary people through open call, showing how they view communication as a key in solving societal problems with the collaboration among diverse groups of people. 

One of their main projects is “Communicating Planetary Health.” Instead of focusing on diseases or medical aspects, they get to health from a holistic view. They connect it to the environment, climate and even societal systems. It’s really open and creative for me. For example, they have this open call for the public to share ideas related to planetary health, organize workshops in local neighborhoods about preparing for heatwaves, and even had interns to talk with refugees about health protection to gather insights from the real scenario. They also make it accessible for the public by publishing it on the websites, making it more tangible and practical, unlike in my hometown where this kind of information feels limited to experts.

They run different activities like film screenings with discussions afterward, exhibitions at Deutsches Museum that link global events like the inflation caused by the war in Ukraine to planetary health. I personally found it fascinating how they connected complex topics and seamlessly digested them to the general public.

I also get to know that the lab is aware of the researchers’ well being, recognizing that some of them face public harassment after publishing their work, which discourages them from sharing their work online. This actually surprised me the most, as I did not expect such a thing to happen to researchers. Also, in Thailand, we don’t pay much attention to researchers’ well-being, which is really sad. They run a communication process to focus on different areas like harmful, constructive, and impactful communication. They study how science is perceived and how to communicate it responsibly through surveys and content analysis, especially in this era where misinformation and hostility towards researchers are happening more and more.