Researchers communicating climate and environmental science (RECES)

Abstract

The project analyses how researchers position themselves in the field of environmental and climate communication. It focuses on scientists from different disciplines who are engaged in researching environmental and climate issues. Like researchers in general, they are increasingly called upon to participate in public discourse and sometimes feel personally motivated to communicate their findings. Given the complexity, interconnectivity, and societal relevance of these research topics, this is a personally challenging endeavour. Public discourse on environmental and climate research generally raises ethical, moral and political questions. In semi-structured interviews with environmental and climate researchers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the project, therefore, records how they understand their own role in the field of environmental and climate communication, how they deal with the pluralism of roles, which personal and disciplinary parameters characterise their view of external communication, and how they define and shape their role for and relationship to the political field.