“Looking at the Big Picture”: A Qualitative Study of Ethics in Science Communication and Engagement

Abstract

Ethical issues arise in many communication and engagement settings. Such issues can, however, fall into the gaps between what is seen as “research” and what is seen as “dissemination.” Semi-structured interviews (n = 17) and focus groups (n = 2) with researchers and science communication and public engagement specialists at U.K. academic institutions and in practice settings suggest that while normative principles for ethical science communication remain fluid, ethical questions are often an area of considerable reflection for those communicating, particularly when they reflect wider social issues and different people in the process: communities, researchers, and institutions.

Introduction

The vital role of science communication and engagement in the United Kingdom, as well as globally, was illustrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic also heightened attention toward the ethical dimensions of communication, including questions of social justice, equity and the role of community perspectives in research on science and health, and how to ensure those community perspectives are both represented and representative (Canfield et al., 2020; Dawson, 2019; Roberson & Orthia, 2021). Researchers and practitioners have increasingly been called on to communicate and engage on complex ethical issues. This includes new and emerging areas of research, or “science in the making,” where there can be heightened uncertainty while evidence is still being gathered, or the possible implications of research may yet to be clear (Pickersgill, 2012). Science does not operate in a vacuum, and therefore engagement can also include moral judgments about political actions or actors, including how information is being mobilized, for instance, in online settings where there can be major concerns around the potential for mis- or disinformation (Freiling et al., 2023). However, little is currently understood about the ethical contexts (both theoretically and practically) in which this communication and engagement takes place or how researchers and practitioners consider the ethical dimensions of such communicative roles. This points to a need for greater consideration of some of the ethical ramifications of communication, including questions it raises about power, access, purpose, autonomy, privacy, and values.

Ethical issues identified in the literature, including a desire to do no harm, ensure there is informed consent, voluntary participation, anonymity and confidentiality, as well as ways for participants to be informed of outcomes (Wilkinson & Weitkamp, 2016), arguably apply to many communication and engagement settings. However, frequently, communication and engagement activities fall between the gaps of what is seen as “research” and what is seen as “dissemination,” often avoiding ethical prompts or processes altogether. With numerous funders now encouraging the involvement of people in research as a part of public engagement approaches (for example, Australian Research Council, 2022; European Commission, 2025; UK Research and Innovation [UKRI], 2023), there has been an increased interest in the role of co-creation, co-design and co-production, as well as techniques like citizen science to embed participation. In the resulting initiatives, not only do we see terminology used interchangeably (Vargas et al., 2022), but also the potential for a further blurring between what counts as research and what counts as engagement, and therefore also a blurring as to if and when ethical review might be required.

Our aim was to understand how researchers and practitioners communicating and engaging about science and health-related topics consider the ethical dimensions of their communication. This is important as at present researchers and practitioners currently undertake science communication and public engagement activities with limited ethical guidance. Guidelines that do exist are often associated with subtly different disciplinary areas (for example, social science and humanities, opinion and marketing research, evaluation associations, journalism bodies, or the museums sector) and their presence may not be obvious to those communicating and engaging around science and health issues (Medvecky & Leach, 2017). This can result in limited support when ethical issues then arise. For example, during the pandemic, there were reports of scientific researchers receiving significant harassment following communication activities, often with minimal institutional backing (Nature Editorial, 2021) and leading to personal ramifications for the researchers involved, as well as wider concerns as to how researchers are safeguarded (Oksanen et al., 2022). As we navigate the decade following the pandemic, as well as the challenges of the global climate crisis and heightened political conflicts, there are also wider ethical considerations that may be necessary. There has been limited empirical data collection on this topic to date (Medvecky & Leach, 2019), despite ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSIs) associated with science itself often being a focus of communication activities. There are also rising numbers of programs training both science communicators and public engagement specialists (Fähnrich et al., 2021), as well as a growing interest in the ethical dimensions of science and technology policymaking (Namdarian et al., 2022).

Literature Review

Ethical considerations in science communication are an overlooked area (Wilkinson & Weitkamp, 2016), and yet as Priest et al. (2018) describe, they are an important feature of the role.

Ethical considerations are not a supplementary component to the practice of science communication—they permeate every decision in preparing for a communicative task, constructing a message, and interacting with an audience. Paying no attention to underlying ethical considerations does not necessarily make a science communicator act in an unethical way, however. Science communicators, like other human beings, may orient themselves to unstated and even unconscious ethical norms without deliberate thought. (p. 13)

Thus, careful consideration of ethical issues has a vital role to play in successful and appropriate communication of research (Medvecky, 2018). Notwithstanding the ethical dimensions that might be integral to many areas of research controversy and hence appropriate content for any science communication activity (Osseweijer, 2006), for many the communication of research itself has an ethical dimension (Forementin & Bortree, 2018), adhering to responsibilities that researchers and scientists might recognize they have to share and engage around their activities (Koivumäki & Wilkinson, 2022). For others, the motivations to communicate might be more moot, driven by funding arrangements, a desire to “bring people on side” or to present science as a finished “product” without reflecting its incremental and nonlinear progression (Nerlich et al., 2009; Priest, 2018; Wilkinson, 2018). A distinction can be made in the literature between two main types of motivation for engagement—“instrumental,” which is to do with engaging to ensure the success of the scientific research, for example, by building public trust, and “intrinsic,” which is about the obligation to include engagement because it is respectful and right thing to do even if in the end this means the research is less likely to take place. Thus, the motivation for communication and engagement in and of itself may raise ethical questions.

One long-standing question in the science communication community has been the role of the “deficit model,” the expectation that providing information to the public will in turn increase their literacy or understanding, resolving many communication issues where science and the public are concerned. While, at face value, debates around the deficit model may not appear ethically related, we may question the ethical components of a model that is inherently top down and authoritative and can neglect public concerns, or the core values of participants (Bronson, 2018; Davies, 2018; Priest et al., 2018; Seethaler et al., 2019). The model can diminish the audience to a homogenized mass (Priest et al., 2018), lacking an appreciation of the complexities of social and political influences on people’s views of science (Nerlich et al., 2009). Nonetheless, there is acceptance that the deficit model remains relevant (Simis et al., 2016) and can be required to underpin engagement (Hartley et al., 2024), as well as providing an entry point for those starting their science communication careers.

How then should ethics be understood in a science communication context? Alain Letourneau (2018) describes there being a “plurality” of meanings for ethics, as well as science communication, but that science communication may raise ethical dimensions in terms of behavioristic aspects, its normative approaches, the values it embodies, how it incorporates reflexivity, as well as organizational aspects, such as its professional infrastructures and financial dimensions. In a series of contributions, Medvecky and Leach (2017, 2019) have stressed the wider ethical considerations science communication provokes, ethical questions that can be lost at an instrumental stage of a science communication project or not befitting of a small-scale activity:

Morally, science communication, this umbrella term for public understanding of science and public engagement with science, is generally seen as the right thing to do. Indeed the moral virtues of science communication are widely taken as read, and this moral footing appeals to the moral value of knowledge in a fundamental way. . .While much effort is spent on being good at science communication (in terms of being effective), less effort is spent on being good science communicators (in terms of morals). We think this is because the value of knowledge often goes unquestioned. (pp. 2–3, emphasis in original)

Accordingly, Medvecky and Leach (2019, pp. 88–91) have proposed four main principles, highlighting that none of these four principles is privileged above the other, they all have equality of consideration, and also that sometimes in an activity one may contradict another.

Utility encourages science communicators to consider the consequences of their activities, for example, how it will empower, enrich, and lead to positive outcomes for those that are involved, for which there can be a subjective element. As well as encouraging science communicators to consider the benefits and harms of communication, this principle also stresses the possible benefits of not communicating, for example on the basis of capacity to act on information that is being provided. Accuracy encourages science communicators to consider authenticity and accuracy. This includes not only the ways in which certain communication means might distort information but also an acknowledgment that factual communication and absolute truths are also not achievable and thus the science communicator must also present the human limits of knowledge. Kairos relates to the way in which communication can be both qualitative and opportune. To say the right thing at the right time, information needs to be reliable, but also provided at a time when action can occur that is empowering for all stakeholders. Generosity relates to our relationships with others in this process of communication. There can be tensions here but this means respecting the knowledge, aspirations, and experiences of all involved in the communication process and that others’ views can contribute to better knowledge and understanding of the world rather than an assumption of “I know best.” Medvecky and Leach (2019) also imply generosity in terms of who is communicated with, to include a diversity of people in knowledge and participation.

Beyond this theoretical approach, there is increasing work on differing contexts for the ethical aspects of science communication, for instance, from a science popularization focus (Liu et al., 2021) and in the context of science journalism (Nerlich et al., 2009). Ethical explorations of the use of narrative (Dahlstrom & Ho, 2012), and framing (Nisbet, 2009; Sprain, 2018) are being further explored in the context of misinformation (Freiling et al., 2023). There is also emerging work on the ethical considerations of particular science communication and engagement approaches, such as citizen science (Groot & Abma, 2022; Remmers et al., 2023), as well as from a science communication training perspective (Fähnrich et al., 2021; Lewenstein & Baram-Tsabari, 2022; Seethaler et al., 2019). While there are then increasing contributions to the literature surrounding the ethics of communication and engagement, these can be ambiguous and have some contradictions, and to our knowledge, empirical evidence on the experiences of both practitioners and researchers vis-à-vis communication and engagement of science and health issues is presently lacking.

Method

Research Design

Our research question in this study was how do researchers and practitioners communicating and engaging about science and health-related topics consider the ethical dimensions of their communication? In this sense, we were interested to find out whether ethics was something researchers and practitioners were actively considering in their communication and engagement activities, and also whether their perspectives could, in theory, offer input to ethical guidance in the future, alongside other contributions, be them theoretical, philosophical, or practical in nature. We designed a pilot project, which included three interlinked work packages to provide qualitative evidence. In Work Package 1, we conducted two international advisory workshops to begin to map the current ethical landscape of science communication, where ethical considerations are made and where gaps lie, as well as to garner feedback on our research methods, data analysis, and outcomes. In Work Package 2, we conducted two focus groups (one in Bristol, one in Oxford) with researchers who are communicating and engaging around science and/or health-based research. These were designed to ascertain the role that ethics plays in their communication and engagement processes at both a practical and theoretical level and covered a series of key topics including how researchers consider the role of ethics in their communication and engagement activities, any support and guidance that is in place, and whether they consider the role of communication/engagement in broader ethical approval processes. In Work Package 3, we conducted interviews (n = 17) with science communication and public engagement specialists at U.K. academic institutions and in practice settings (museums, science centers, funding organizations, and other informal learning spaces), to identify the support offered to researchers and practitioners and any frameworks that are utilized for the consideration of ethical issues. Our interview schedule covered key questions such as how these institutions currently consider ethics within their work, the role of ethics committees, and any training that is provided. We made a decision not to provide a strict definition of communication and/or engagement for our participants, allowing them to operationalize these terms in their own contexts. The interview and focus group questions are provided as Supplementary Material. In this article, we report on data collected via the focus groups and interviews. The research was granted ethical approval from the University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol (HAS.2302.83) and participants were given the option to be acknowledged with the research, or to have their input anonymized.

Sampling

As a pilot project, we made the decision to concentrate on two geographical areas. Both Bristol and Oxford are home to two universities (University of Bristol/UWE Bristol/University of Oxford/Oxford Brookes). One of the universities, in both cities, is a “Russell Group” university, a group formed of 24 institutions that are research-intensive and provide significant social, economic, and cultural impacts across the United Kingdom and around the globe and with long-established histories. The second university in both cities is a post-1992 university, a former polytechnic, often with a strong teaching emphasis coupled with research, and provided with university status just over 30 years ago. These institutions, therefore, have differing contexts and operate in a competitive higher education context (Fotiadou, 2022). With existing collaborations at all four universities, we were able to reach researchers working in different institutional settings, with differing levels of supporting infrastructure, and communicating a wide range of science and health subjects. We used our connections at these institutions as a basis for our sampling, which for both the focus groups and interviews took a convenience approach. Advertisements for the focus groups were shared via university communications, social media, and through personal networks. In the case of the interviews, we compiled a list of people to invite; this included those based in local museums, science centers, and other informal learning spaces, with the exception of those representing funding organizations who were working at a national level but had established relationships and/or funded projects in the two cities. There are limitations in this sampling approach, but as a pilot project which was scheduled for only 18 months, it assisted us to identify a range of individuals with different roles, settings, and levels of experience in relation to communication and engagement.

The focus groups each comprised five participants, including researchers who worked on a range of science and health topics and with participants at a range of career stages, from PhD through to Professor. The Bristol focus group took place entirely online in January 2024 (1 hr). The Oxford focus group was hybrid in September 2023 (1.5 hr). Due to the way in which we invited participation for the focus groups it is not possible to provide a response rate, but we highlight that the inclusion of 11 researchers across four universities represents a small sample size when compared with the wider university populations.

We initially invited 39 individuals to participate in an interview, with just under half (43%) accepting the invitation. The one-to-one interviews were conducted with a range of stakeholders, including two working for funding bodies, nine individuals in university engagement/communication roles, three based in community organizations, and a further three interviewees who were museum-/science center−based. Again, there are limitations with the sample size, but we were able to include a variety of roles and perspectives as well as distribution across the two cities. Interviews were between 20 min and 1 hr, with the average interview lasting around 40 min and were conducted between June and September 2023.

Analysis

Focus groups and interviews were audio recorded via Microsoft Teams, with transcripts checked and annotated in full before being uploaded to NVivo 14. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis focusing on process and meaning, reflection on assumptions, and allowing for nuance, contradiction, and uncertainty (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Reflexive thematic analysis provides a situated reflexive space to consider our roles as researchers and positions this as a strength rather than a bias (Braun & Clarke, 2022), which is of relevance to this research given that all involved had existing relationships to ethics and/or science and health communication.

We conducted six phases in our data analysis process. This included two researchers familiarizing themselves with the data and constructing an initial set of codes and their descriptions, gathering codes into potential themes, review by an external member of our team for repetition and miscoding, and a meeting to finalize themes, codes, and definitions before writing up the data. The coding framework is provided as Supplementary Material.

Results

Our thematic analysis identified a number of important themes pertaining to the purposes and values of communication and engagement, ethical underpinnings, how the field has evolved, responsibilities surrounding ethics, and what a framework for ethics in communication and engagement could look like. Here, we focus on those pertaining to our original research question by examining in detail the theme “Ethical Issues in Communication and Engagement” including data which related to relationships, content, implications, and culture change in science and health communication and engagement.

Relationships

Relationships were an important strand within the data, perhaps not unexpectedly given that communication and engagement involve relationship forming and significant recent drivers for increased public engagement, but three further dimensions were identified. Trust, hierarchy, and power were important topics in both the focus groups and interviews. Interviewees discussed the power dimensions of working with others when seeking to engage. Relationships are formed, but trust can also be broken, and some organizations were referred to as having complicated relationships with communities. In the museum sector, certain situations were described as being more harmful and problematic for participants than others (for example, when they are extractive), although museums were also cited as existing in hierarchical relationships with universities at points, when museums were being “looked at” by researchers rather than “collaborated with.” Similarly, research itself was seen to operate within hierarchies, for instance, when interdisciplinary research formed the basis for communication and engagement, even among researchers there could be different power dynamics between disciplines.

Relationships were not only important for engagement with specific groups and communities. The importance of respect and understanding those you are communicating with at a broad level was often highlighted, as well as the dangers of deficit approaches that assume a lack of knowledge on the part of others or an assumption that citizens have a particularly negative perspective of research. It was seen by participants in our study, to be important in communication not just to be “cheerleaders” or “advocates” for research, particularly in the face of a perceived mistrust, but to be open and consider high-quality engagement rather than reactionary approaches to form connections with people. In some instances, there was a good understanding of the ethical dimensions of communicating with publics by those delivering communication and engagement day in day out, but a concern that this may not be understood by others that they might be working with who were either less experienced or had different agendas, for example, more senior colleagues at an institution or organization who may wish to promote their institutional activities, or researchers who rarely communicate or engage and may have limited awareness of its role. A small number of comments suggested that practitioners (who sometimes worked in solitary roles) were often in a mediatory space around ethics, where the lack of obvious accountability for ethical considerations in a communication and engagement context meant they were often shouldering the weight of that consideration with a sense of responsibility to the different communities they served.

Assumptions had other ethical implications, with the power dynamics of an engagement situation sometimes lacking consideration in advance, as this interviewee shared when discussing an example of researchers engaging around a topic where there had been significant commercial interests. In this example, the financial and commercial gains associated with developing a particular geographical site could pose a risk to the community living and working in that area feeling that they could safely share their perspectives, something which needed advance consideration:

. . . Sometimes researchers can stumble into something where they can see the benefit of something, but they’re coming at it from quite a privileged position themselves. And . . . it doesn’t necessarily follow through into the activity. I think in that actual activity it was done very well and very well thought through and the researchers did an excellent job of it, but it was just an example of those kind of power dynamics that people can kind of stumble into. (I-15, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford)

While those based in communication and engagement units that we interviewed talked about their extensive experience and how they successfully engaged with academic colleagues, they also flagged that there were power dynamics in such roles, with frequent difficult hierarchical situations in projects because “you are not an academic.” Equally, researchers described having to trust others, for instance, playwrights and artists when collaborating to communicate, but also volunteered an awareness of their power as researchers:

When you’re wearing an Oxford University hat and you’re telling somebody and they’re in another setting this is something that we should be doing, there’s some inherent baggage that comes along with making that kind of recommendation as to whether that will be received in it in a positive way, or negative way. . . A researcher from Oxford University gets rights to somewhere when they want to do research, and they’re gonna get much more free reign to do research than a researcher from the less well known university. . . So, I think there are ethical considerations around that as well. (FG-6, Researcher, Oxford)

Practitioners discussed going above and beyond what might be expected in their roles, for instance, assisting community organizations they had established collaborations with to write funding applications beyond the work they were cooperating on due to a sense of commitment to relationships they had fostered. A number of comments also alluded to relationships being integral to a desire to expand not only who has access to research outputs and communication, but equitable approaches to inputting in research from a social justice perspective.

Fundamental to many of these comments was how to attribute value and recognize people’s contribution to the communication or engagement process and that involvement is not always acknowledged equally, or appropriately. Systems such as how to make payments or recognize people’s time are vital to avoid engagement being “unjust,” or “exploitative,” and there were seen to be ethical dimensions to the way in which voluntary participation, for example, is relied upon in the engagement sector. However, concerns were also raised that operational aspects can also make things seem “instrumental” or “extractive,” perhaps not reflecting the nuanced relationships built in some contexts. This brings us to our next code under this subtheme, that of generosity. Practitioners shared how keen community members were to engage for the good of their communities, while researchers and industry partners were identified as sometimes “volunteering” to communicate or engage as part of their roles, but that this then led demands on their time (for instance, to engage in additional processes or training) or questions as to how their contributions were also being recognized:

I’m working with a researcher from another institution. They’re not a university, they are a research institution and they are very much on board for engagement. They were really happy to work with us but I found out that they were having to take a holiday and doing stuff in their own time because their institutions saw the engagement as not beneficial. It wasn’t leading to a policy change. It wasn’t, it was not a waste of time, but it was, you know, she could be doing other things with her time. (I-16, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford)

There was thus something of a delicate balance between recognizing ways to acknowledge contributions, including financially, while doing so in a manner that recognized the altruistic reasons people may engage and this could extend to the practicalities of ethical processes and the relationships these may infer, particularly documentation that traditionally depicts people as subjects rather than collaborators or participants, and which was not always befitting when people preferred to happily and freely provide their input.

Relationships also had important dimensions regarding timings, with longevity and legacy also forming a code within this subtheme. There were numerous comments regarding the dangers of “parachute” research, communication, and engagement, including within local and national communities, as well as internationally, among researchers and practitioners alike. In some instances, interviewees identified partners that they had decided not to work with, for instance, if they operated with different values or their research was seen to have undesirable outcomes (for example, working with the Tobacco industry), as well as scenarios where partnerships could in fact be formed to seek to influence or shift other institutions’ practices for the better. Relationships with communities were described as needing to be “consistent,” with a core infrastructure for sustainability, with concerns expressed as to how to maintain relationships beyond funding periods, and this having important ethical dimensions. Short-term funding could have detrimental impacts on the quality of engagement, but also on the people involved: “people can’t actually finish a project because they need to look for the next job” (I-1, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Bristol). Researchers similarly described the challenges of funding cycles and the need to work on the next funding application before a current one was completed. There were seen to be wider impacts of this kind of culture in science communication and engagement, that short-term projects may not lead to the potential large reaching impacts and sustainable relationships that could be possible, and that science communication was becoming “a young person’s game” with the supporting sectors being underpaid and frequently losing the nuance and expertise of more experienced practitioners.

Content

Given how many science communication and engagement activities focus on the ethical implications of research, be that bioethical implications of CRISPR or designing ethical self-driving cars, for example, it was also somewhat expected that the content of communication and engagement activities would arise in the discussions. Science and health as ethical issues included the citing of various topics for activities, such as synthetic blood, artificial intelligence, animals in research, biodiversity, military interventions, genetic data use, and facial recognition, which meant ethical aspects had been at the heart of the projects participants were working on. We will not dwell on this here, given the social and ethical aspects of science are already well discussed, except to say that many of our participants stressed the importance of engagement in this context as being fundamental to the role of communication. In other words, that to undertake ethical and responsible research, both public communication and input were important, “for me, ethics is absolutely critically important for any knowledge creation” (I-17 University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Bristol), and in some cases critical to the future of their institutional landscape, for example, forming a part of contemporary conversations in the museum sector.

There were also a small number of instances where participants discussed that there may occasionally be important reasons not to communicate or engage around an area, or the need to do so with a very explicitly ethical mindset, and these were coded under exclusion. This was not to say that all comments in this area related to subjects being avoided, which in itself could raise an ethical quandary, but that there could sometimes be complex ethical concerns for those communicating on topics where the ability to influence a change or reduce a risk, for example, was limited, or where participation in a particular activity might reveal something about a personal situation which could place participants at risk in some way. In one extract which touched not only on the challenges of the topic being engaged around but also the different community dimensions under consideration, this point was elaborated on when discussing an area of the city of Bristol and the challenges of discussing air pollution:

The area itself has a high concentration of wood burners installed [nearby]. . . It’s also quite high on the deprivation index in the country, some of the neighbours and some of the streets there. It’s also a got a strong heritage from the Windrush generation, we’ve got a lot of people from Caribbean descent. We also get a lot of people who move into the area will get placed into the area with social housing. . . So there’s multiple factors that inequality has brought on to these families and then within that context, they already suffer a lot of issues, essentially health issues and then you’ve got the air pollution that is really high in that area as well . . . they’re just disproportionately affected by air pollution and also low car ownership. . . So if you talk about air pollution there, you really hear more stories about asthma, suffering or children suffering and people feeling like what can we do, you know? And then you’re like, am I actually prepared now to be able to be in a position to support this, and how do I signpost? (I-17, Community Organisation Representative, Bristol)

In such scenarios, interviewees and focus group members thus discussed a realization that in some communication activities more support or follow-up would be needed, for instance, around health information or participants’ psychological well-being, or that there could be a risk to participants in sharing information or engaging at all (for example, around HIV diagnosis in specific communities where the condition remains highly stigmatized).

The consideration of how to contextualize information is also related to the code of framing. Here, interviewees discussed how to frame information for different groups, as well as the need for sensitivity, listening and compassion in communication, and centralizing voices via engagement that had previously been excluded from research, again to avoid extraction. As mentioned previously, there was caution around framing that entirely focused on the positives of scientific research, or was primarily focused on recruitment to scientific careers, effectively concerns that science communication could be mistaken for PR, as well as more contemporary questions about the role of communication and engagement in museums, for example, in areas that could be construed as “campaigning.” Although there were few specific scenarios provided about methods that could cause ethical concerns, examples were provided where the framing had not been clear for engagement participants (for instance, when it had not been clear something was fictional) or where it could lead to increased concerns on the part of audiences (e.g., balancing the need for action on climate change, with the potential for climate anxiety). In the Bristol focus group, researchers discussed use of narrative and simplification in communications as a potential concern, but also came to the conclusion that steps could be taken to try to minimize and anticipate this.

The final code in terms of this subtheme related to processes and practicalities and that different approaches may imply different ethical burdens. As we have already discussed under a previous code, payments caused considerable concern but there were also other examples of structurally related issues that drew out ethical dimensions. Here, practitioners emphasized that while principles and guidance go so far, it can often be the practical dimensions that have important connotations:

I think if you want to work in any kind of, if you want to take the expertise of a community member, you should be paying them for that if it’s going to inform something. . . But actually, usually you’re just paying them in kind of rewards. . . I think it’s much better that you pay people for their time in a professional way. It’s about valuing what they’re doing. They’re not just giving them an Amazon voucher. (I-18, Museum/Science Centre Representative, Oxford)

The environment for activities, transportation links, safeguarding, data protection, the nature of the organization, and contractual arrangements were all identified as practicalities that could exclude or deter people from activities if misunderstood, unclear, or challenging to handle. In some cases, there was seen to be a fine line between legal practicalities that might be considered when planning engagement, and ethical considerations and these were highlighted as having potentially significant implications if mishandled.

Implications

The third subtheme here relates to the implications of communication and engagement, and while there were a small number of comments under this theme regarding the positive impacts of communication and engagement, the main thrust of the comments, given our focus, was on possible implications that could cause harm, albeit often unintentional.

Negative implications for participants were the most commonly discussed aspect. Topics of potential ethical concern included communication and engagement projects focusing too greatly on the needs of research rather than citizens’ needs, people becoming aware of information that could have a negative impact on them (for example, being “at risk” of a particular health condition), communication and engagement activities requiring labor (including emotional) in terms of their input, and that engagement takes time away from other activities people may want to be involved in, including work during a cost-of-living crisis. Certain subjects were seen to have more sensitivities than others, for instance, seeking to engage with communities where consent may be challenging due to frailty, language, or capacity. Although anonymity of data is largely associated with research itself, there were also concerns expressed that some communication and engagement activities could unintentionally reveal identifying information, for example, open data from a geographical community, or conversely, that findings and the impacts of engagement, were not always fed back to participants effectively, leaving them with uncertainty.

Returning to the role of science communication, interviewees discussed the potential harm of low-quality activities, the lack of detailed consideration of goals of activities, and the impact this could have on future engagement when participants became fatigued or disillusioned: ‘there are schools in Oxford that don’t talk to university groups because they’ve had so much bad stuff in the past’ (I-2, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford). Here, the interviewee continued to discuss ways that in their role they encouraged researchers to think about these points when planning activities:

Sometimes my role is to reel people back and sort of ask the question like is this going to help or is this not going to help? Is this going to do nothing at all or even make things worse? And I would say in science communication especially that’s not a conversation that’s had very often, the idea that you could make it worse. . . Lots of researchers are interested in doing engagement with schools, which is fine but you know, especially secondary schools, the students are so time poor, especially at particular points of the year, most taking a lesson or two or three out of their time is actively harmful, potentially, to their actual schooling, if the thing we deliver is not useful to the teacher and to the school. . . There’s a moral element to making sure the engagement we do is worth it. (I-2, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford)

Advance planning was described as helping to navigate negative implications, as could an awareness of the sensitivities certain activities could provoke, for example, in encouraging someone to revisit a difficult lived experience, or to consider a topic that could be relevant to a loved one or friend. As an interviewee expressed, this did not always mean subjects needed to be avoided as “you can cover very difficult challenging topics without upsetting people” (I-3, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford) and it was pointed out that there were some subject matter, where it was important communication should play a role despite its challenges, “usually the risk is when they’re [researchers] not doing it, when they should do it” (I-19, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford). In the Oxford focus group, researchers shared examples of planning ahead to reduce likely harm to participants, including in a drama production that included the subject of suicide, and communications around a project which had the potential to reveal health information that could put subjects at risk in their own communities.

Comments that related to harm for researchers were also identified in the data. Some of the points raised here touched on earlier issues identified, including that researchers’ time was often underresourced in communication and engagement activities, adding to already challenging work environments. Researchers might feel under pressure to engage, particularly those from underrepresented groups creating hidden labor, or to find impacts and recommendations from their work (with the added pressure of then being accountable for them), when this was not always appropriate professionally or personally. Concerns were expressed around researchers physical and psychological safety when working in controversial areas, and although the practitioners we spoke with discussed in detail the support and work they undertook with researchers, they also highlighted instances where there could be a lack of support:

I’ve certainly seen a lot of academics taking a break from Twitter and saying I can’t handle this anymore; I need to step away for a while. I think there is something in terms of researchers wanting to try to do the right thing and they’re not quite sure how to do the right thing. (I-15, University Public/Community Engagement Representative, Oxford)

In some settings, researchers were then seen to be entering difficult debates, without necessarily having the training, or facilitation skills to navigate them. It was also highlighted by participants that some researchers may be better equipped to anticipate ethical aspects of communication and engagement, as their research fields demand greater consideration of ethics in the research process.

Among comments around implications for researchers, the implications of a loss of control were raised. Beyond the ways in which this might take place via social media, participants discussed piloting communication activities to try to anticipate unintended consequences, as well as having to accept that once a communication activity has taken place publicly there can be limited control of a message. Most comments under this code related to the potential for communications to become viral, but there were also comments that related to the overall challenges of communication due to the contexts in which it could be interpreted in different ways, as a focus group participant explained:

At the beginning of the epidemic we thought we really had a solution to contact tracing. . .we really felt morally and ethically obliged to speak out and actually go to the NHS and try to make that happen. And it was really difficult process and it was also difficult communicating that with government and there were other groups who were opposed to the app on privacy grounds. And you really have to watch what you’re saying because there’s like one wrong sentence that you say somewhere, and it’s being picked up in the media and turned against you. Sometimes you have to communicate with the ethics in the back of your head, but sometimes also there is an ethical obligation to communicate. (FG-14, Researcher, Oxford)

A small number of comments related to harm for practitioners. We noted colleagues in museum settings identifying the challenges for front of house staff or explainers, in interacting with people around exhibitions which, ultimately, they had not designed and curators feeling a sense of responsibility to that. There were also examples of practitioners hearing and engaging with views that they personally disagreed with and/or that were negative toward communities they identified with.

Culture Changes

The final subtheme in our analysis relates to perceived culture changes, both within the field of science communication and beyond that were identified as having ethical dimensions. Before examining these, it is worth noting that the importance of considering cultural contexts came up throughout the data, particularly when considering communities that researchers may be seeking to connect with. We will not discuss this in detail here due to word constraints, but the expansion of approaches like co-production and co-creation warranted their own code (2.1), as the blurring of boundaries this created between engagement and research was so heavily discussed and is, therefore, being written up for separate publication.

Changing political landscapes gathered comments around implications for the communication and engagement of research in terms of the types of language that were used, activities that were supported and topics that were favored, as well as how institutions, organizations, and community groups were financially supported to undertake their work. Gender was provided as one example of a topic that had become more politically contentious in the United Kingdom, and therefore more controversial than it would have been relatively recently, and practitioners and researchers discussed fears of upsetting people. A small number of participants also discussed an increased sense of needing to shift from presenting “both sides” to articulating a viewpoint, particularly on topics like the climate crisis, while still trying to navigate doing the “right thing” and using the “right language,” as well as avoiding and/or accepting that you might offend people in doing so.

Undertaking research in Bristol and Oxford meant decolonization in academia and its surrounding infrastructure was also a strong thread running through the data we gathered, and decolonization in itself constitutes an ethical issue. Here, comments included ways in which practitioners were acknowledging colonization in the contexts of research and the histories of their organizations, how institutions were externally perceived, how researchers were conducting their activities in other locations around the world, and how all participants were thinking about the make-up of the spaces and places they occupied, who was present, and who was missing. An interviewee gave an example of a project they had been working on:

We have started a project over the past couple of years to try and interlink our environmental engagement practice with our decolonial practice and social justice practice, and consider the stories that are not told in the displays. Of course, how they matter in terms of representation and equality, diversity, inclusion, but also why they might matter more broadly in terms of how people think about environment and environmental engagement. (I-20, Museum/Science Centre Representative, Oxford)

Comments around decolonization and its important role in ethical communication and engagement by our participants also intersected consideration of equality, diversity, and inclusion in science communication. For engagement processes, it was identified as being essential to attract a diversity of knowledge, to avoid discriminatory practices, and consider physical, social, and cultural barriers that may deter effective engagement. Many examples were given of specific community groups that participants worked with, and the rich insights and perspectives this was bringing to engagement processes, as well as the highlighting of areas for reflection or improvement. The two representatives from funding organizations both strongly highlighted the role of these topics in communication and engagement work they were supporting. Thus, among the data we gathered, while we identified many ethical issues that practitioners and researchers were navigating, there was also a sense of a broader conversation:

I think looking at the big picture, I mean we are talking about challenges a lot and I think those are important. But I think there is a positive aspect of ethics as well. . . It is about promoting inclusion, promoting justice and I think we may not get everything right all the time but we are I think on the right path. . . The public like making decisions about research sort of right and helping to set up the agenda, publishing together, I think this huge, I guess so different from how research was done 20 years ago, where all the power was in the hands of the research and no power at all to the public. So, I think it is difficult to revive things but it feels like the system is changing quite a bit over recent years and I suppose I think positive ethical considerations also come into play. (I-9, Researcher, Oxford)

Discussion

The data we gathered in this research clearly link to ethical principles and challenges expressed in the existing literature but identify additional challenges experienced by researchers and practitioners when seeking to enact ethical principles in practice. There were many comments related to the need to carefully consider the outcomes of activities and the positive enrichment that science communication can create, but there were also examples where practicalities, of the funding environment, researchers training or experience, or the time to plan in advance, meant such outcomes were not delivered.

We also identified tensions in the sharing of goals between different people in the process, communities, researchers, and institutions. This suggests that the normative aspects of ethical science communication are often under negotiation (Letourneau, 2018; Priest et al., 2018), that science communication practitioners and researchers are in their own ways “co-producing” normative ethical behaviors (Pickersgill, 2012), and that negotiating practical ethical solutions is part of what it means to do communication and engagement work in contemporary social contexts. The identification of different participants in the process (Koivumäki & Wilkinson, 2022) means there may always be challenges in formulating ethical goals that can be agreed in all contexts for communication and engagement, at an individual, project level or across science communication more widely, and that a more fluid approach is necessary.

The benefits and harms of science communication were at the forefront of our participants’ minds and an area where we located plentiful data, particularly associated with possible harms, including consideration of instances where there were questions as to whether information was best not communicated. Thus, while we found challenges in terms of the way in which science communication is sometimes being operationalised in the United Kingdom, we also found instances where the expertise of the practitioners working within it, and the sensitivities of the researchers we spoke to, meant potential implications for participants was a key concern suggesting a significant reflexive driver exists (Letourneau, 2018). We found participants diligently acting and supporting others ethically, often in quite solitary ways and without an overarching sense of backing, resulting in them thanking us for the focus groups and interviews as an opportunity to share and articulate the challenges they were facing as individuals or in small teams.

Some comments were more expected and have already been documented in existing literature, for example, around the potential for messages to be framed differently when they left a communicators control (Nerlich et al., 2009; Nisbet, 2009) or the need to avoid false balance (Rietdijk & Archer, 2021), but there was a sense that new conversations were taking place about the need to assert positions or consider the campaigning role of institutional settings and how that related to objectivity and neutrality. With the many comments regarding decolonization, there was a clear desire to correct perceived inaccuracies and misrepresentations of the past and a perception that decolonization forms part of an ethical imperative in the formation and sharing of knowledge (Tobi, 2020). In this sense, we see researchers and practitioners considering a variety of behavioral aspects being informed by their ethical considerations, and a sense of aiming to “practice what they preach.” There was also an awareness of the potential for information to have a negative impact on participants, often linked to the social, cultural, and political issues that were raised and how these were influencing science communication agendas and the values of different organizational settings (Letourneau, 2018). There was a sense that we were capturing comments at a moment in time when, at least in the United Kingdom, practice among this group of participants had moved away considerably from the deficit model to far greater engagement and with a much more co-produced sensibility, which was not only rooted in the idea of science being for the greater good, but involved navigating and shifting conceptions of ethics and its practice (Institute for Community Studies & UKRI, 2024).

Generosity, touched upon in Medvecky and Leach’s (2019) work, was central to the desire to engage with a greater diversity of people. Where there was perhaps more nuance in our data compared with existing literature was around the concerns about how relationships were established, maintained, and sustainable and the complexity of hierarchical aspects, including funding cycles, within this context. Generosity also played a role in the many comments around valuing contributions versus a more altruistic perspective, and there are still ethical conundrums as to how to adequately recognize the contributions of public participants, as well as the spirit of generosity toward practitioners and researchers and their emotional and practical labor in communication and engagement settings.

Finally, it was apparent in our data that those we spoke to were taking a very reflexive approach to the ethical considerations of their communication and engagement work (Letourneau, 2018), and saw it as important (Forementin & Bortree, 2018; Medvecky, 2018), but they also spoke of a desire for further resources in this area, including those offered by other people, and how these issues interacted with governance systems and guidance. This suggests the reflexive perspectives of practitioners and researchers could offer one useful source of input to any such guidance in the future, with the caveat that the complexities of social, cultural, geographical, and political contexts means any suggestion of universal guidance should be convened with a very high degree of care.

Limitations and Future Research

As we have highlighted in our methods section, the main limitation of this research was the relatively small sample size, and our focus on gathering data in two U.K. cities, albeit locations for a relatively broad range of institutions, communication, and engagement activities. It was challenging to remain focused on science communication and engagement activities within our focus group and interviews, although avoiding the provision of definitions helped us to scope a broader area, it did mean inevitably the conversations at times conflated research with its sharing but this is also somewhat inevitable as the boundaries between research, communication, and engagement become more blurred in the context of models for co-production and creation.

Despite its small scale, our data suggest a number of areas for further research, including greater consideration as to how changes in the funding environment are altering normative perspectives on the goals of science communication and how that can then be enacted in practice. There is a need to understand further how training, resources, and support can be put in place to navigate some of the ethical contexts researchers and practitioners reported to us and what that should look like as one size will not fit all. Finally, our research suggests there is an appetite to share and discuss these experiences, suggesting further empirical research on the topic of ethics in science communication over a wider range of contexts, countries, and settings would be beneficial in parallel to theoretical debates on the ethical dimensions of science communication.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-scx-10.1177_10755470251334305 – Supplemental material for “Looking at the Big Picture”: A Qualitative Study of Ethics in Science Communication and Engagement

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-scx-10.1177_10755470251334305 for “Looking at the Big Picture”: A Qualitative Study of Ethics in Science Communication and Engagement by Clare Wilkinson, Michael Parker, Milly Farrell and Aleksandra Stelmach in Science Communication