Abstract
Scientists face increasing expectations to engage in public communication. Using role identity theory, this qualitative interview study explores how experienced STEM researchers in Germany integrate these expectations into their professional role identities, where conflicts and intersections arise, and which factors influence these processes. Findings reveal that while some scientists integrate communication demands with core professional roles (e.g., research, teaching), others perceive them part of external administrative burdens, leading to resistance. The results imply that the increasing obligations for scientists’ engagement in science communication should be closer aligned with their central identity standards.
Keywords
Introduction
Due to changing contextual conditions of the scientific system (Brüggemann et al., 2020) and changed communication structures through new (digital) technologies (Neuberger et al., 2023), science communication increasingly requires engagement by scientists. Empirical indicators that this is the case are that employment contracts or target agreements of scientists increasingly include science communication (e.g., Bao et al., 2023; Koivumäki et al., 2021), that research funders now include communication or transfer packages in research funding conditions (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2023; European Commission, 2023), and that research organizations increasingly invest in support and training for researchers’ science communication (Dudo et al., 2021; Fürst et al., 2022). As such, science communication is increasingly part of social expectations toward a partial professional role of researchers as communicating scientists.
If one understands the construct of the social role in its functionalist definition (Biddle, 1979) as an overall bundle of behavioral expectations directed at holders of a specific social position (e.g., the profession of scientist), it can be argued that a new communicative component of the overall professional role of scientists may be institutionalizing (e.g., Biermann & Taddicken, 2025; Brüggemann et al., 2020). While there are calls from science communication research to take into account the intersections of science communication with broader identities (Bennett et al., 2025; Horst, 2013; Rodrigues et al., 2023), most empirical work on scientists’ individual science communication focuses on goals (Besley et al., 2020), perceived barriers (Chen et al., 2023; Getson et al., 2022; Ho et al., 2020), or cognitive models (Kessler et al., 2022). However, this research often ignores the importance of existing, internalized identity configurations and intersections of newly emerging professional role expectations with prominent identifications (Hong et al., 2024). By focusing on these intersections, we can better understand how pre-existing identifications can influence professional identity formation, rather than viewing science communication as a set of isolated choices.
In this study we empirically address the outlined intersections of science communication expectations and scientists’ existing professional self-concepts. In line with identity theory (Serpe et al., 2020), we understand those self-concepts which are based on internalized attributions of meaning to one’s own professional roles as professional role identities. In short, they describe the subjective relationships of individuals to the social roles they occupy. We assume that each person internalizes many different sub-role identities based on social experience. These are arranged in a dynamic system and can be hierarchized along operationalizable parameters (Burke et al., 2022).
We ask how experienced researchers perceive themselves in their profession (identity meaning), how science communication relates to those overarching professional identities (identity structure and hierarchy) and which individual and social factors the scientists perceive as linked to the position of science communication in their overall professional identity (identity formation). To identify ideal-typical patterns of identity-related internalization of science communication expectations, we use a multi-step qualitative approach informed by identity theory via guided interviews with 25 experienced scientists from STEM disciplines in Germany—a national context in which dynamic institutionalization processes are currently taking place. Findings from this specific context can be used to further support scientists in taking on science communication as aspect of their professional roles, including in science communication training (Lewenstein & Baram-Tsabari, 2022) and institutionalized science communication strategies (Fürst et al., 2022).
Theoretical Background
Identity Meaning: Defining Social Role and Role Identity in the Context of Science Communication
In order to understand the added value of role identity theory for the research objective, it is first useful to distinguish the construct from the related concept of social role. The latter describes the totality of behavioral expectations that are directed by various actors at the holders of a social position (e.g., the profession of scientist) (Biddle, 1979). It thus tends to be independent of the individuals who hold it and is considered relatively stable (Anglin et al., 2022). In contrast, role identity theory argues that individuals internalize behavior in and perceived expectations of social roles as role identities (RIDs). Those are cognitive schemata, formed through experience and social interaction on the basis of existing attitudes, beliefs, and identifications. Those internalized RIDs in turn influence how individuals subjectively interpret new social experiences and which role-related behavior they consider adequate in a given situation (Serpe et al., 2020).
RIDs are thus internalized and socially reproduced meanings, which are defined as subjective (cognitive and emotional) responses to experienced social observations (Burke et al., 2022). The analysis of RIDs focuses on sets of meaning that holders of a social role subjectively assign to enacted as well as expected behavior. Those RID centered meanings are called identity standards and they could be considered as “defining the character of the [role] identity held by an individual” (Burke et al., 2022, p. 120). They can lie on very different levels, referring to certain behaviors, goals, attitudes, values, norms, or interaction partners that are subjectively considered central to the role.
In the context of scientists’ science communication, analyzing identity standards shows how scientists navigate growing demands regarding communicative roles through their existing system of professional RIDs. Despite these demands, some scientists do not strongly identify with communicative professional roles (Davies & Horst, 2016). Researchers from STEM disciplines, in particular, tend to integrate communicative roles less into their professional identities than those from other fields (Ho et al., 2020). Even in the same professional context, scientists interpret their roles differently and, as a result, engage in science communication in varying ways (Kessler et al., 2022). Many researchers struggle to determine which tasks they should take on in the communication process (Besley et al., 2021; Koivumäki et al., 2021) and how their individual communication efforts align with overarching professional goals (Besley et al., 2020). Here, RID theory can help to uncover explanations for very different subjective interpretations of the communicative role expectations of scientists.
In addition, expectations and requirements toward scientists are rather rarely formalized (Metcalfe, 2022). Without such shared and fixed rules and norms different internalized identity standards can significantly influence how scientists interpret and enact their roles in science communication. For instance, one scientist may view themselves primarily as an educator, focusing on simplifying complex scientific concepts for broader audiences (Davies & Horst, 2016; Peters, 2021), aligning with identity standards that emphasize clarity, accessibility, and a sense of duty regarding public education (Roedema et al., 2021). Others may subjectively interpret their communicative role more as a political advisor, advocate, or even an activist (Biermann & Taddicken, 2025; Graminius, 2023; Pielke, 2007), who actively promotes certain political perspectives that stem from research findings.
Identity Structure: Science Communication as Part of Scientists’ Professional RID-System
Role identity theory suggests that the integration of new roles into an individual’s broader RID system depends on the alignment and intersection of these roles with already internalized RIDs considered central to their self-concept (Burke et al., 2022). For scientists, this means that expectations around active science communication are more likely to be internalized if the associated identity standards resonate with existing, deeply valued RIDs (Stets et al., 2020).
Investigating RIDs thus provides explanatory value for the subjective relationship that scientists establish with communicative roles that go beyond the “role conceptions” (Mellado, 2021), which describe how individuals cognitively understand the expectations and functions associated with their social roles (e.g., Biermann & Taddicken, 2025; Volk et al., 2023). This construct leaves aside overlaps and intersections with other identity and role concepts, which can have an important impact on the actual role performance (Hong et al., 2024; Kaplan & Garner, 2017).
Those RID overlaps and intersections have been shown as relevant factors for science communication. Danish scientists, for example, partly see their science communication coupled with other, management-related professional roles and adapt their communication behavior in specific contexts accordingly (Horst, 2013). Other researchers see science communication as an associated part of the research process in their researcher role (Bennett et al., 2025; Horst, 2013; Riley et al., 2022) or as partially overlapping with their teacher/educator roles (Barbolini, 2022). Science communication can also overlap with superordinate identities, such as the identification as members of minoritized groups (Rodrigues et al., 2023). Given the increasing demands to integrate communicative practices into scientists’ professional roles, we aim to explore how these tasks and functions align with other subjectively central professional RIDs of scientists and ask:
Research Question 1.1: What identity standards underlie scientists’ internalization of role expectations toward science communication into their system of professional RIDs?
Research Question 1.2: Do those standards form a distinct RID? If so, how does it relate to other professional RIDs?
Identity Hierarchy: Ranking Science Communication Against Other Role Identities
While identity standards determine the subjective quality of an RID for an individual, the identity hierarchy determines which RID is enacted more frequently than others. Role identity theory provides two empirically measurable parameters of identity hierarchy:
Identity salience (Serpe et al., 2020) describes the probability with which an individual expresses a specific RID in social behavior across various social encounters (Burke et al., 2022). For example, in public controversy regarding socio-scientific issues, some scientists seem to take on the role of policy-oriented advocate or activist, while others prefer to remain in more neutral expert roles (Biermann et al., 2023; Entradas et al., 2019; Graminius, 2023).
Identity prominence (Burke et al., 2022) refers to the subjective importance that a specific RID has for the self-description of an individual. 1 Scientists repeatedly report that they identify primarily as researchers (McAlister et al., 2022; Xu, 2024) and therefore, treat science communication as a secondary priority when time is limited in order to protect the researcher RID (Riley et al., 2022; Rödder, 2012). Researcher and teacher RIDs are typically ranked highly in both subjective importance and time allocation (Hillbrink & Jucks, 2019; McAlister et al., 2022). In contrast, they generally consider management and administration roles less subjectively prominent (Mantai, 2019; Xu, 2024), while these often require significant time investment (Fabian et al., 2023). This highlights that traditionally core academic roles hold greater prominence in researchers’ identity systems than secondary tasks, even when external pressures demand substantial performance in these less valued roles. Hence, we ask:
Research Question 2: How prominent and salient is science communication compared to other professional RIDs of scientists?
Identity Formation: Influences on the Internalization of Communicative RIDs
Role identity theory assumes that the hierarchical position of an RID in the overall system of RIDs is influenced by an interplay of (a) existing RIDs, identity standards, and their inter-relations (psychological-individual component) and (b) the social contexts, relationships and structures in which individuals act and which determine which RIDs are considered important by central reference groups (social-structural component) (Burke et al., 2022).
Empirical studies on science communication reveal a corresponding dichotomy. On a structural level, for example, insufficient recognition and incentives (e.g., Bao et al., 2023; Entradas et al., 2019; Wilkinson et al., 2022), a lack of resources (e.g., Calice et al., 2022; Gavhi-Molefe et al., 2021), and limited support from professional communicators (Wilkinson et al., 2022) appear to limit the way in which individual researchers can carry out communicative activities. Above all, fundamental cultural factors in the academic system appear to prioritize academic communication to a much lesser extent than traditional professional tasks such as research and teaching (AbiGhannam & Dudo, 2022; Rose et al., 2020).
At the individual level, self-perceived personality traits (Tsfati et al., 2011), political and ideological attitudes (Entradas et al., 2019), or the desire to be a role model for underrepresented groups in the science system (e.g., AbiGhannam & Dudo, 2022; Gavhi-Molefe et al., 2021) may have a connection with the motivation for science communication. Since there are hardly any empirical results on how these factors relate to the ranking of individual science communication in the overall system of professional RIDs of scientists, we ask:
Research Question 3: Which perceived factors on an individual and structural level are related to the position of science communication in scientists’ professional RID system?
Method
We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with experienced STEM scientists from Germany between February and September 2023. The procedure was pre-registered. 2
Case Context
As national institutional and cultural differences, may influence how researchers internalize role-specific demands, we focus on only one national context: Germany presents an interesting case because the formal recognition of science communication as a legitimate part of academic work is relatively recent; some even describe Germany as a “late-comer” in this regard (Weingart & Joubert, 2019). For a long time, science communication was considered voluntary and peripheral, with few institutional incentives or career-related rewards. This contrasts with countries like the United Kingdom or the United States, where societal impact has become embedded in research evaluation frameworks—for instance, through the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (Chowdhury et al., 2016). While German research organizations have referred to societal engagement as part of their “third mission” for years (Henke, 2019), tangible incentives and strategic relevance at the university management level have only recently begun to emerge. Increasing attention to science communication is now granted from the perspective of both research policy and funding (BMBF, 2019; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2023). In this transitional context, studying Germany thus provides a meaningful case for exploring how researchers respond to shifting professional norms in the absence of long-standing, formalized incentive structures.
Recruiting
We recruited the participants using purposive sampling, a method in which individuals are selected based on specific criteria relevant to the research objectives (Etikan et al., 2015). We used key selection criteria to control structural factors influencing interviewees’ subjective relationship to science communication while ensuring sufficient diversity to identify patterns related to the research questions. We recruited:
Only scientists from STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to minimize the influence of disciplinary differences on perceptions of science communication (Rose et al., 2020),
Exclusively from publicly financed research universities to ensure a comparable organizational culture, where the traditional university missions of research, teaching, and academic service are prevalent (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020),
Only experienced researchers with management responsibilities (e.g., research group leaders or professors) because their professional RIDs are generally more stable than those of early-career researchers (Brosi & Welpe, 2014; Hillbrink & Jucks, 2019). Moreover, in Europe, this group is officially expected to engage in science communication (European Commission, 2011).
Quotas ensured representation across all four STEM disciplines and varied levels of professional experience. Minimum discipline quotas (see preregistration form) reflected the distribution of researchers in Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland, 2023). Regarding professional experience, quotas balanced participants with over and under 10 years in management positions. We monitored secondary criteria during the recruitment phase to maintain sample heterogeneity, including gender, total academic tenure, and science communication experience.
The recruitment was carried out in two waves, first through searching in the authors’ professional networks according to the primary recruitment criteria and second through manually searching potential interviewees on the websites of German universities and contacting them via e-mail. Overall, 146 individuals were identified and contacted, 47 researchers answered (response rate = 32.19%). Of these, 15 people canceled the interview due to a lack of time. We excluded a further seven people because researchers with other characteristics were required to fulfill the recruitment quotas described. Finally, through the first recruitment wave, we successfully recruited and interviewed 12 participants, followed by 13 in the second.
The Participants
The final sample consisted of 25 scientists from 12 different research universities in Germany (15 from universities of technology and 10 from comprehensive universities). The distributions along the recruitment criteria are shown in Table 1.
Participants Distribution Across Sampling Criteria (N = 25).
Note. The sample here is categorized according to the four disciplines of the STEM fields (S = natural sciences, T = information technology, E = engineering, M = mathematics). Junior Professors and Research Group Leaders are comparable to Assistant Professors, but only some positions offer tenure-track.
At the time of the interviews, the participants had been working in academia for an average of 20.8 years (SD = 11.07, min = 5, max = 40), calculated from the start of their doctoral thesis. On average, they had been in a position with management responsibility for 11.6 years (SD = 8.32, min = 1, max = 27). They held a variety of positions, for example as heads of institutes, deans of faculties or university vice presidents. Their research topics covered a broad spectrum between fundamental (e.g., numerical linear algebra, theoretical chemistry) and more application-oriented topics (e.g., the effects of climate change on geosystems, cryptography in the field of secure digital messaging).
Interview Procedure
The interview guideline (see Supplementary Material on OSF) was roughly divided into the main constructs from RID theory: RIDs, identity standards, identity prominence/salience and subjective perceived influencing factors at the individual and structural level (Burke et al., 2022). We pretested it with three STEM scientists from different career stages and slightly refined it afterwards. First, the overall professional RID system was reconstructed in a bottom-up approach. Participants reported typical activities in their everyday working life and then categorized (open card sorting task; Rugg & McGeorge, 2005) these into clusters representing RIDs, which they were to name. The aim here was to reconstruct the RIDs and particularly their identity standards together with the interviewees, especially in letting them “think-aloud” (Righi et al., 2013). This task resulted in thematic RID cluster maps that represented the system of subjectively internalized professional RIDs of each participant (see Figure 1 for an example). To assess the prominence and salience of each RID relative to others, we used a fixed-point budget approach (Ovadia, 2004): Participants were asked to distribute 100 percentage points regarding (a) the actual proportion of time spent on each RID in a typical year (identity salience), and (b) the ideal distribution of role performance according to their ideal professional identity neglecting external constraints (identity prominence). Participants provided reasoning for each of their ranking and rating decisions.
Example of Professional Activities Clustered Into RIDs With Prominence and Salience Scores.
We then provided a broad definition of external science communication and asked them to identify related activities in their daily work (based on Schäfer, 2015). Afterward, we reviewed a list of typical science communication activities, asking if they considered any of the activities on the map as science communication or if they engaged in any additional activities, which were mapped onto the existing RID system, allowing for the creation of new clusters, assignment to existing ones, or a combination of both. If new role clusters were formed, interviewees ranked again all RID clusters in terms of prominence and salience. We finally recorded their decision rationales, communication motivations in each RID, perceived barriers, and perceived influential social factors.
Most of the interviews (n = 21) were conducted digitally using Webex, some (n = 4) were done in person. All participants actively consented to being recorded. The interviews lasted 86.05 minutes on average (SD = 14.27, Min = 41.53, Max = 104.13), and were conducted exclusively by the first author.
Analysis
Interviews were automatically transcribed using F4X software, verified for accuracy, and coded in MAXQDA. The analysis employed an adapted thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) using the “framework” method (Ritchie et al., 2014), divided into three phases: (1) reconstructing superordinate types of professional RIDs from the RIDs clustered by the interviewees (e.g., researcher, teacher, manager, mentor, communicator), 3 (2) identifying themes related to the structural and hierarchical positioning of individual science communication within these RIDs, and (3) identifying overarching themes related to individual and structural factors influencing science communications position. The analysis process is explained in short in Figure 2.
Analysis Process.
The coding process (see Figure 2) integrated deductive and inductive methods. We applied initial codes, derived from theory, to text segments in the transcripts. Inductive coding followed iteratively in multiple steps, with two coders paraphrasing pre-coded segments for each interviewee. Through iterative discussion, we developed subcodes, culminating in a finalized coding scheme (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The first author applied this scheme to all data, organizing codes into two framework tables, one on RID-level, one on interviewee-level. Finally, we interpretatively derived overarching themes by comparing the framework tables with the original transcripts (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Throughout all analysis phases, we applied quality assurance procedures for qualitative research, including tests for code overlap on transcript segments with two coders in MAXQDA and reliability tests for the inductive coding of subcodes (O’Connor & Joffe, 2020). All tests revealed satisfactory results. The development of themes, as an interpretative step (Braun & Clarke, 2021), involved iterative team discussions and constant comparison of categories, themes, and data. A comprehensive description of the full procedure on the different levels (see Figure 2) can be found in the Supplementary Material on OSF. 4
Results
RQ1: The Structural Position of Individual Science Communication and Underlying Identity Standards
The cross-case analysis identified a total of four recurring themes that describe how the interviewees integrate individual science communication in their system of professional RIDs (see Table 2). These are to be understood as ideal types, which in reality often occur simultaneously and in different constellations. The assignments are based on codes formed in the analysis for identity standards, which from the interviewees’ point of view are the reason why the communicative activities belong to the respective assigned RID.
Identified Themes Regarding the Positioning of Individual Science Communication in the Professional RID System of Experienced STEM Researchers.
The first and most common emerging theme describes that the scientists often not understood science communication as an independent professional role, but as a support and enabling function for the RIDs that they considered truly important for the profession (see Figure 3), such as researcher and teacher. Interviewees who assigned communicative activities to the researcher RID (n = 16), mainly viewed science communication as a natural extension of their research tasks and functions, and accordingly refered to central identity standards of the researcher RID (e.g., knowledge generation and dissemination): “Ultimately, it’s the same work. It’s just formulated differently—more tangible and accessible” (Interview 3). They particularly considered science communication as part of the researcher RID when it came to transferring knowledge from their specific research projects to target groups such as industry or politics, with the aim often being the development of new technologies or patents. In addition, they often saw interdisciplinary communication as a form of scientific communication (Hendriks & Bromme, 2022) that aims at promoting scientific collaboration “[…] so that others can use this knowledge in their own research” (Interview 7).
Identified Types of RID Internalization Regarding Science Communication in the Interviews.
At the same time, some interviewees (often the same ones) assigned communicative activities that they associated with fundamentally different identity standards to their teacher RIDs (n = 8). Here, they rather emphasized the dissemination of broad and accessible scientific topics to potential future researchers and professionals. For them, activities such as giving talks to schoolchildren, organizing information days, hosting lab tours, and creating informational materials for prospective students primarily aimed at inspiring young people and promoting scientific literacy with the overall goal to attract new talent to STEM fields: “We need science communication in STEM to recruit students and show its importance. It’s essential for a country like Germany, which relies on technology and engineering, to make these fields attractive” (Interview 6). Some also viewed teaching in higher education as a form of science communication, also aiming for building a pipeline of future researchers. They described the communication in this RID as “[. . .] more interactive and dialogical” (Interview 16), with a stronger focus on lasting knowledge transfer. Interviewees noted that to some extend “[. . .] the skills used in communication are the same as those for teaching” (Interview 7).
Many interviewees (n = 11) also integrated communicative activities into RIDs related to administration or science management, associating it almost exclusively as an externally imposed duty. Associated activities partly overlapped with those of the other classification types, but by association to administration, participants signified little relevance to core scientific processes: “It’s really an administrative task because it doesn’t advance my research. Maybe indirectly, but it’s mainly just part of the administration” (Interview 14). The primary motivation was external pressure, often stemming from project guidelines and organizational demands, which the interviewees perceived as “[. . .] simply a requirement, even if you don’t see the direct benefit” (Interview 17). Participants who held specific management positions, such as heads of departments, faculty deans, or directors of research institutes, also assigned communicative activities to the RIDs associated with these positions. Here, the goals and contexts of communication shifted away from science itself and toward representing the organization (Davies & Horst, 2016; Horst, 2013). The core identity standards in these RIDs often revolved around ensuring the well-being of staff and securing the organization’s future: “In my management role, it’s about taking care of the employees, helping them develop, and ensuring they are funded” (Interview 10).
Another proportion of interviewees (n = 10) did indeed show tendencies toward an internalization of a distinct communicator RID which was characterized by its own unique identity standards, emphasizing its more public-oriented positioning compared to other RIDs: “So ultimately I, or others also perhaps, would like to locate themselves in some role in society as well” (Interview 5). The perceived core function of this role was direct communication on scientific topics to a vaguely defined lay audience or “general public” (Interview 13). This was regardless of the specific format or medium, for example when engaging in media work, public events, or creating content for websites, social media, podcasts, or popular science publications. The two main driving forces for communication in this RID did lay in a strong sense of duty to give back to society, especially “[. . .] because my science is tax-funded and I therefore see it as my responsibility to communicate something to the public” (Interview 2), and a desire to legitimize their work and field, ensuring continued public and financial support: “So it’s not so much about communicating my specific research topic. […] The aim was always to raise awareness so that no funding is cut” (Interview 8). Besides those legitimization-aimed goals, many of the respective interviewees also wanted to ensure “[. . .] that what is conceived and created here benefits society in some way” (Interview 22). The main point emphasized here was that the performance of the RID should reduce misconceptions in society and increase factual knowledge in order to pursue social goals more effectively. Overall, interviewees often perceived this RID as close to the researcher RID (see Figure 3). It stood apart due to its strong focus on the broader public, viewed both as a target audience for knowledge dissemination and as essential for legitimizing ongoing funding for scientific institutions.
A last theme emerging from the interviews was the complete detachment of some components of science communication from professional RIDs, with some interviewees (n = 8) assigning certain communicative activities to their private life—particularly in discussions about their research or science in general with family or friends, where interviewees expressed not to feel as if acting in their professional role as scientists (see Figure 3): “I have doubts if this even belongs to my job. To me, it’s more of a private matter” (Interview 13). A few interviewees also viewed their communication through personal social media accounts as part of their private role, even when discussing scientific topics. Interestingly, in such contexts—whether in person or online—interviewees felt much freer to express personal opinions, without the constraints of professional norms: “As a scientist, I have certain expectations for scientific standards in what I communicate, but that doesn’t apply to everything I tweet privately” (Interview 12). The focus shifted to convincing others of personal views and opinions: “I act more like a missionary in those conversations” (Interview 19).
RQ2: The Hierarchical Position of Individual Science Communication in the RID System
While some interviewees did recognize a communicator role as an independent RID the analysis of prominence and salience scores (see Table 3) suggests that this communicative RID held relatively low centrality.
Prominence and Salience Scores.
Note. Of the 13 overarching RID categories reconstructed in the analysis, only those that were internalized by at least half of the interviewees are reported here. In addition, the communicator RID was included in order to discuss its scores in relation to these widely held RIDs. The reported scores always refer only to the cases that have internalized the respective RID reported in the first column. An overview of the values of all other RIDs can be seen in the framework table in the Supplementary Material on OSF.
The values for identity salience of the communicator RID, measured as the average percentage of time in the role in an average year, were significantly lower than for core professional RIDs in the scientific profession, such as researcher, teacher, or administrator. Some interviewees emphasized that science communication does not occur as frequently as the performance of other professional roles, but nevertheless constitutes a fixed and regular part of their professional role performance: “If we talk about 8 percent now, about the weekly time, then this 8 percent represents almost half a day’s work, and that on a regular basis. That’s quite a lot” (Interview 11). Others stated that communication rather manifests in certain phases of the year. Interestingly, they rated the identity prominence for communicative RIDs (measured as the desired percentage of the respective RID in the ideal-typical self-image of the scientific profession) higher than the actual performance (identity salience). As some interviewees remarked, communicative tasks are considered “generally important” (Interview 7), indicating that while science communication is not a core part of their professional identity, it often is more valued than externally imposed administrative duties.
RQ3: Perceived Influences on the Positioning of Science Communication-Related RIDs
In the final stage of thematic analysis, we examined patterns in interviewees’ reasoning about the subjective positioning and ranking of science communication within their professional RID systems. Through cross-case analysis and case comparisons in framework tables, we identified three themes illustrating how perceived expectations from research organizations, the scientific system, and society interact with existing RIDs, underlying identifications, and personal traits.
Cultural Change in Universities and the Research System
Overall, it became very clear that most of the interviewees perceived a growing pressure of expectations for additional communicative roles in recent years:
My impression is that this is actually being demanded more and more in recent years, simply that there is a certain amount of pressure that you have to do this, [. . .] so a bit from the general public, from society, but much more specifically, for example, also from the university management, which also writes into your target agreements.
5
(Interview 9)
Participants reflected that university management not only officially requires communication from scientists, but also implicitly expects and values it. Those who had more recently taken on their leadership role were particularly aware of these official and cultural requirements and accordingly internalized communicator RIDs more frequently as an integral part of their overarching self-image. Contrary, long-standing professors explicitly stated that they were happy to be “employed under the old law” (Interview 8), “not to have to keep up with these new requirements because I am already established” (Interview 25) and accordingly tended to assign a lower centrality to communication in the RID system, often associating it with administrative RIDs. In addition to organizational pressure, the interviewees perceived significantly increasing demands from research funding bodies which for some time now have increasingly defined science communication as an official component of some funding packages: “So the German Research Foundation, research projects of all kinds, they want to see it. So that’s simply part of the job” (Interview 4).
Despite this, many interviewees addressed a current lack of profound and sustainable integration of communicative roles into central academic structures. Especially for the researcher RID (which received by far the highest prominence ratings) systemic metrics for evaluating success relate to publications, citations, and gained funding—but not science communication, which diminishes its perceived value for the professional identity: “Today’s research world is driven by metrics, [. . .] science communication isn’t part of that equation” (Interview 1). This systemic gap, where science communication was perceived as an increasing role expectation but did not align yet with institutional measures of success, created a structural disincentive for engaging in such activities, especially when time was already limited by other professional responsibilities. In addition, the absence of professionalized, centralized support led partially to the perception that science communication was an afterthought, not a meaningful part of their identity as scientists.
Negotiating Science Communication Within Professional Role Pressures
At an individual level, the intersections and conflicts of science communication with other professional RIDs could be identified as relevant influencing factors. The interviewees particularly emphasized the researcher RID as the core domain of the scientist as a profession, for which they invested most of their available time, often protecting it against other task requirements: “As a researcher, that’s not necessarily the first task you see for yourself now, [. . .] so to do this kind of science communication. Instead, the first task I see here is, of course, to achieve research results” (Interview 14). Since management-related roles, as well as academic teaching, took up a large part of working time due to official requirements and implicit pressure, and any free time was often invested as much as possible in the performance of the most prominent RID of the researchers, the communicator RID tended to get somewhat lost in these processes.
However, the interviewees performed science communication activities more frequently when they considered them to overlap with the identity standards of particularly prominent RIDs. In these cases, they viewed communication as a means to enhance or legitimize their most central RIDs, indicating an enabling function rather than a competing role. Thus, identity-standard-related science communication achieved a higher rank in the identity hierarchy when it directly contributed to the advancement of more prominent professional goals, such as “raising the visibility of our research” (Interview 1), “inspiration for my own research” (Interview 14), “full lecture halls” (Interview 6), “youth enthusiastic about science” (Interview 25) or especially for interviewees without permanent positions, “securing my position and thus my existence as a researcher” (Interview 22). Some of the interviewees felt the pressure to contribute scientific accurate knowledge from their position as researchers, especially in order to counteract perceived existing misconceptions and “fake news” (Interview 13):
My topic was very, very controversially discussed in public for a while. It was simply a matter of concern to me to take a scientific perspective on it and to take some of the heat out of the controversy by simply clarifying what is good and what is right. (Interview 7)
For these interviewees, science communication was an integral “sense of duty” (Calice et al., 2022), in line with values and identity standards that were the foundation of all professional roles (e.g., belief in the scientific method, benefits of scientific knowledge for society). However, this pattern was particularly evident among interviewees who perceived their topics as controversial; in contrast to researchers who classified their work as “basic research” (Interview 25). This was also illustrated by the contrasting perspective of the performance of particularly less prominent RIDs: When the interviewed scientists purely viewed science communication as an administrative task for managerial responsibilities, they often perceived it as irrelevant to the core of the professional identity: “So I don’t see it as my intrinsic task to take care of the next generation or to improve the reputation of the university. [. . .] So that’s clearly not my role, which is why [identity prominence] is low” (Interview 11).
Intersections and Conflicts With Personal Identities
Some of the interviewees also showed tensions between perceived science communication expectations and higher-level identities. Interviewees who described themselves as “shy and not so communicative” (Interview 13) or “per se averse to communicative tasks” (Interview 20) stated that they not only did not seek public communication, but in some cases actively avoided it: “I simply just don’t like to do it. So maybe it’s just a character thing” (Interview 14). Moreover, some STEM scientists cited their “lack of experience in such matters” (Interview 6) as the main reason, associated with low self-efficacy. Some revealed a strong concern about being publicly perceived as incompetent or even as a “fake expert” (Interview 21) due to mistakes in science communication.
In contrast, some participants noted that personal enjoyment and personal identification with communication activities enhanced the prominence of the communicator RID for them. They saw science communication as not only a professional task but also a reflection of their personal passions and interests: “It’s personally interesting to spark interest in what I do” (Interview 5). Especially among female interviewees, there was also a pattern reflecting a personal desire to serve as a “role model for young girls” (Interview 2). Many of the female interviewees explicitly mentioned how difficult they believe the often very male-dominated STEM disciplines are for aspiring young women. In order to encourage a change toward more diversity, they wanted to use science communication to show that “[. . .] the job of a computer scientist is not the pimply nerd who spends all their time typing at high speed on a console or computer” (Interview 19). The desire to enable subsequent generations to do the same, seemed to be partly related to a higher prominence of communicator RID.
Discussion
Our findings reveal new insights into the professional RID systems of established scientists. Most of the interviewed scientists perceived growing demands and official requests for new communicative tasks. Efforts to convert structures in research organizations and research funding toward this goal can be understood as an ongoing institutionalization process of science communication as a professional role (Fürst et al., 2022). In other countries, as outlined above, the institutionalization of science communication into the science system and academic identities may already be further advanced than in Germany. However, our interviews indicate that the German interviewees recognize such currently ongoing efforts—either as growing importance of communication in the public sphere and among university management, or as communication increasingly being included as official task in contracts, target agreements or funding conditions. Younger scientists seemed to enact individual science communication more frequently, and assigned it a more central and sometimes more autonomous role in their professional RID system. Based on recent empirical work (Bennett et al., 2025), it can be assumed that scientists’ professional identities are particularly shaped by experiences during their initial years of professional socialization, as these formative experiences play a crucial role in establishing their professional self-concept (McAlister et al., 2022). For decades, research, teaching and academic self-administration were the fundamental roles in the academic system (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020). However, in times of growing demands, expectations and requirements for communication may recently have been more internalized in these important socialization processes. This may be one of the potential reasons for a tendency toward a higher prominence of communicative activities among younger scientists interviewed.
However, in line with previous work on academic RIDs (McAlister et al., 2022; Xu, 2024), we can show that the traditional core academic roles of research and teaching maintain the highest degree of prominence and salience (regardless of career age). This is hardly surprising, given that teaching and research have been listed as central “missions” of the academic system (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020) and are central for measuring professional success, especially research output (Hamann & Velarde, 2024). The basic identity standards of generating and passing on new scientific knowledge permeated almost all of the interviewees’ professional RIDs in our interview material. In line with role identity theory (Burke et al., 2022), the interviewees showed a strong tendency to perform these central standards of their professional identity as often as possible and at the same time relieve it from external restrictions. They defined themselves primarily as researchers and kept this central self-concept stable across contexts, for example by avoiding additional, time-intensive tasks (such as science communication). As shown in prior work (Barbolini, 2022; Horst, 2013; Wilkinson et al., 2022) intersections with researcher roles (e.g., by securing funding or increasing visibility), or teacher roles (e.g., by promoting STEM disciplines to younger audiences), could be relevant in several ways:
First, our study emphasizes that instrumental motivations dominate, with interviewed scientists engaging in science communication almost exclusively when it aligned with these core roles (researcher and teacher) and supported professional objectives. These motivational tendencies diverge from prevailing normative demands that advocate for science communication solely as profound exchanges between science and society aimed at generating social value. Instead, the interviewed scientists prioritized maintaining the academic research and education systems over fostering public dialogue. The idea that science communication can serve as a learning opportunity for researchers through interaction with non-experts played only a marginal role among our interviewees despite a few mentioning gaining inspiration for societal impact or new research directions. This does not imply that such a goal lacks relevance; other studies have shown that learning from public engagement can indeed be a driver of researchers’ communication efforts (Hendriks & Bromme, 2022). Its absence in our data could be due to the limited communication experience of many interviewees, their ideas about the nature of science communication (Kessler et al., 2022), but also to the fact that the interviews did not focus on an in-depth explanation of the motivations for public engagement. Second, interviewed researchers who viewed science communication as contradictory or isolated from prominent professional identities encountered it with skepticism, aversion or reactance. This pattern can be explained by purely external motives having a negative influence on intrinsic motivation and the quality of output (Deci et al., 2017). In our study, researchers rather declined normative goals when interpreting science communication as an (externally imposed) administrative or management task (Horst, 2013).
Third, some scientists completely detached their science communication efforts (e.g., on personal social media accounts) from their professional identity. However, even if researchers perceive their own communication not as part of their scientific profession, the audience may still perceive them as scientific experts. Communicating without adhering to academic standards could therefore jeopardize public trust in science (Hendriks et al., 2016).
In consequence, our results highlight the importance of recognizing how science communication intersects with researchers’ core professional identities. First of all, research funding and research organizations should reflect on the extent to which it is worthwhile to institutionalize science communication as a profound part of scientists’ professional self-images. While science communication training could aim identification, internalization and building of coherent self-images (Lewenstein & Baram-Tsabari, 2022), universities could acknowledge and reward science communication in promotion committees to connect it to researchers’ core professional identities and their central identity standards (Stets et al., 2020). Such initiatives may increase researchers’ intrinsic motivation to communicate (Deci et al., 2017). In addition, focusing training on creating an impact beyond the scientific system for broader society may result in the evolvement of a deep-seated professional identity standard, unifying goals in research, teaching and communicator roles—elsewhere called “impact identity” (Risien & Storksdieck, 2018). The idea of an impact identity implies a meaningful integration of communication into professional self-concepts. However, it remains debatable whether communicative effort alone—independent of research-based societal outcomes—should justify institutional recognition. From this perspective, it may be more appropriate to incentivize communication not as a goal in itself, but as a means of enhancing the broader societal relevance and uptake of scientific work. Ultimately, this is a normative question that requires broader societal and policy debate, and based on our empirical findings, no clear position can be taken within the scope of this study.
In the same line, our results suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to promoting science communication is unlikely to succeed. Policies should be flexible and tailored to different disciplinary and individual contexts. Research from the field of organizational communication and change management shows that it can make a significant difference how new role requirements are framed in terms of language and design (Chreim, 2006). By communicating them to be in line with the central identity standards, the subjective interpretation of an initially negative or misleading perception of science communication (e.g., as a purely additional administrative task) may be shifted toward benefits for prominent RIDs (Werner & Cornelissen, 2014).
On a theoretical level, we can show that the construct of professional RIDs can represent an additional and quite valuable perspective in the study of motivation for science communication among researchers. In contrast to many empirical studies on this topic, this theoretical frame can broaden the view to overall professional self-conceptions (Davies & Horst, 2016; Rödder, 2012) and avoids the potential empirical problem of exaggerating the real importance of science communication motivation for researchers through isolated inquiries and subsequent social-desire-biased answering behavior (Paulhus, 2002). Such identity-meaning-related analyses can not only help to better understand how strongly or intensively certain role expectations are internalized, but also how these are subjectively interpreted and translated into behavioral intentions in relation to existing self-images (Anglin et al., 2022).
Limitations and Future Research
This study has several limitations that should be taken into account when interpreting the results. The focus on German STEM academics limits the generalizability of the findings, as national cultural and organizational factors may shape professional role identities differently elsewhere. This focus facilitates situating the analysis within existing literature on RID systems of STEM scientists (e.g., Bennett et al., 2025; McAlister et al., 2022), and allows us to look at dynamic identity processes in a national context where communicative role requirements are only just becoming institutionalized. However, future research should explore other career stages, disciplines, and country contexts to enable broader conclusions. However, since our focus was on individual cognitive processes around identity meanings rather than socio-cultural factors, our explorative results allow for generating hypotheses regarding role identity processes in different academic contexts.
Our focus on experienced researchers limits insights into academic socialization processes at the early-career stage, where professional identities are still forming (Gardner, 2010), overlooking potentially differing perspectives of younger researchers on integrating science communication (Bennett et al., 2025). Future research should examine how early-career academics perceive communicative expectations and how academic structures influence the internalization of communicative RIDs.
Even if the role identity approach puts science communication in a larger identity frame, the use of semi-structured interviews may still evoke the impression of science communication being normatively important (Paulhus, 2002). In addition, the chosen method of reconstructing RIDs via typical activities could lead to different results than a direct survey of professional self-conceptions would have done. However, the inductively identified basic types of professional RIDs (e.g., researcher, teacher, manager) are comparable to existing studies from the field of higher education research using more direct questioning methods (e.g., McAlister et al., 2022) and thus can be considered relatively reliable. Hence, we can now link them to science communication-related RIDs.
Future research could further address organizational factors and structures directly by combining psychological measures of identity internalization (e.g., surveys) with analyses of institutional guidelines and structures (e.g., document analysis) in a mixed-methods approach, enabling a clearer connection between expectations, support systems and structures, and the internalization of communicative RIDs.
Conclusion
Using a theory-driven methodological approach, we reconstructed the subjective professional RIDs of 25 experienced STEM scientists in Germany, examining how science communication is structurally and hierarchically integrated. Our findings emphasize the importance of exploring the intersections and disconnections between science communication and scientists’ established professional identities to better understand their motivations, as well as their reservations, regarding growing expectations of a communicative role. We demonstrated that effectively embedding science communication as a professional component requires linking it to scientists’ core roles and identity standards. When this connection is overlooked, communicative tasks risk being perceived as an “on-top” administrative burden, detached from the essential academic processes. These insights offer a valuable foundation for further research on scientists’ motivations and identifications with science communication, as well as for designing interventions—such as training programs or organizational change initiatives—that aim to more effectively integrate researchers into communicative practices.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was conducted as part of the Junior Research Group “Communicating Scientists: Challenges, Competencies, Contexts (fourC),” granted to Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken and Prof. Dr. Barbara Thies, TU Braunschweig, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—UP 8/1.
Consent to Participate
All participants have given their written consent to participate in the study. The declaration of consent can be found in the Supplemental Appendix in the file “OSF_preregistration_form.”
Consent for Publication
All participants have given their explicit consent to the use of the interviews for publication within the scope defined in the declaration of consent.
AI Statement
Parts of this manuscript were edited for language and clarity using GenAI (GPT-4o and DeepL). All conceptual and theoretical ideas were developed entirely by the authors and they take full responsibility for the contents of this manuscript.
