Projects: Communication Platform
The ROOTS Communication Platform accompanies and assists the Cluster´s research endeavor with three main activities. The Platform:
1. supports the internal communication of the Cluster,
2. develops outreach activities for schools and citizens in design-based research approaches, and
3. involves junior researchers in outreach activities as elements of science career experiences and orientation.
The Communication Platform therefore offers interfaces between and within the ROOTS research disciplines, on the one hand, and contributes to science and humanities communication and education research and practice on the other.
In order to link the three main objectives, the Communication Platform applies a model suitable to characterise sub-disciplines and elements of todays´ fields of activities in science and the individual interests of scientists. This model has been successfully adapted for other science outreach measures (Dierks et al., 2016; Stamer et al., 2019, 2020) and is based on Holland´s so called RIASEC model (Holland 1997).
This model enables the researchers of the subclusters to become storytellers along the overarching narrative of socio-environmental-cultural connectivity.
1. Supporting internal communication
The involvement of the Communication Platform in the speakers’ group of ROOTS since December 2020 aims to support continuous interactive exchange across the subclusters and interlinkage research groups as well as among the junior researchers in cooperation with the Young Academy.
Starting with the Cluster Council (Cluster-Rat) meeting in January 2021, this involvement incorporates a reflection on the experienced status of internal communication processes, an exchange about overarching questions for Cluster development and the formation of interlinkage groups between the subclusters.
In cooperation with the representatives of the Young Academy, the Communication Platform is currently reflecting on the aims of the Young Academy program. This will lead to suggestions for new formats and a joint mission statement for career support of the ROOTS Young Academy, again as an interface between the research groups and the doctoral projects in the subclusters, on the one hand, and the university´s graduate and post-graduate centers´facilities on the other.
2. Developing outreach activities for schools and citizens in design-based research approaches
The main focus of the Communication Platform is aligned with a model and evidence-based design of outreach measures. Embedded in the Kiel Science Outreach Campus KiSOC, the Communication Platform applies a framework of co-design: ROOTS research and research on communication and education form two equivalent columns of the ROOTS outreach measures.
The Communication Platform addresses schools and citizens; the former with regard to attracting a next generation of potential researchers and citizens, the latter with the aim of supporting public perception and participation in scientific initiatives. Measures for school students and teachers aim at offering insights into the “Nature of ROOTS research”, enlarging the concept of the “nature of science” (NoS, e.g. Kremer & Neumann 2003). The archaeo:lab in the student laboratory of the Kieler Forschungswerkstatt and the environment of the Museum Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig form the pivotal environments for these measures.
Activities for the public do not only offer insights and information but also enable citizens to engage in ROOTS, e.g., through Citizen Science involvements. The on-going development of exhibitions and material lays a foundation for such further engagement.
The archeao:lab / Walter Dörfler, Ilka Parchmann, Katrin Schöps
3. Involving junior researchers in outreach measures as elements of science career experiences and orientation
The Cluster of Excellence ROOTS will develop outstanding and cutting-edge science expertise. This involves findings as well as the presentation of results and interpretations of research by the scientists. In the interdisciplinary fields of research in ROOTS, diverse career pathways exist. In addition to individual groundwork in the different disciplines and general career advice measures for junior scientists, ROOTS enables post-doctoral researchers and doctoral students to dedicate part of their work to science communication as well as to teaching and education activities. The Communication Platform engages junior researchers in the planning and realisation of outreach activities based on their project results.
