Much of my work sits where strategy, transformation and communication meet. Science communication is one of the clearest examples of why this matters.
Making complex research accessible is not simply a question of explaining it well. Different audiences come with different levels of knowledge, interests and reasons to engage. One format will rarely serve them all.
I experienced this very concretely with Zeitensprung, a research project investigating prehistoric pile dwellings at Lake Attersee and Lake Mondsee in Austria. The project was closely connected to the wider context of the UNESCO World Heritage site Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. The archaeological sites themselves are under water and cannot simply be visited by the public. What could be made accessible on land were the research process, the people behind it and the knowledge emerging from it, for example through the temporary research station and formats such as the open excavation day.
The programme therefore did not start with channels. It started with people and purpose. For the Attersee campaigns, the local population was the primary audience, alongside visitors to the region and a wider interested public. Communication had several tasks: making the research understandable, creating awareness of heritage protection, building trust and making scientific expertise visible.
The result was not one flagship format, but an ecosystem of different approaches. And they did not all serve the same purpose. There is an important distinction between science communication, science outreach and participation in research.
The terminology itself is not entirely clear-cut, either in German or in English. To some extent, that makes sense. A science blog can communicate and provide deeper scientific understanding at the same time. A guided tour can transfer knowledge while also creating dialogue. And a citizen science project can combine communication, outreach and actual participation. The formats overlap. Their functions do not necessarily do so. I therefore find it useful to distinguish between what each activity is meant to achieve: Is research being made visible? Is scientific knowledge being made accessible and understandable? Or are people actually given a role in the research process? The boundaries are fluid. The functions are not.
In the Zeitensprung programme, media relations and social media primarily served science communication. Exhibitions, public talks, guided tours, school programmes, the open excavation day and the underwater livestream were primarily forms of science outreach.
The science blog sat between the two. It was a communication channel, but its depth and content also made it a tool for science outreach. Participation in the research process formed another level again and was only possible in specific forms. I will return to that distinction in another post.
What made the ecosystem interesting was how these elements worked together. The science blog gave researchers room to explain their work in greater depth and created a continuous record of the project. Its content could also feed media work and other communication. Talks and exhibitions picked up topics emerging from the ongoing research. When wood became particularly important during one excavation campaign, it became a focus of the outreach programme. When archaeobotany moved into the foreground, the programme followed. Science communication and outreach did not sit next to the research. They moved with it.
The exhibition followed the same principle. It was modular, so topics could be added or changed easily. And it was not confined to one exhibition space. In the village of Weyregg, elements appeared in the local school, the municipal office, a bank and near the research base at the lakeside. Some information was accessible outdoors around the clock. Rather than expecting everyone to visit one central exhibition, the research became visible in places that were already part of everyday life in the community.
Direct encounters added something no publication or display could provide. Regional associations were involved in public tours, and their guides were trained together with experienced museum educators. Visitors could move from an introduction to the pile dwellings to the temporary research station, where members of the excavation team explained their work and showed finds from the site. School groups received adapted tours. Science outreach became direct and personal without losing its scientific substance.
Der Unterwasser-Livestream zeigt die Idee vielleicht am deutlichsten. Eine Kamera in unmittelbarer Nähe der Grabungsfläche zeigte Forschungstaucher:innen bei der Entnahme von Proben, beim Bergen von Funden und bei der Dokumentation ihrer Arbeit. Dadurch erhielten Menschen einen direkten Einblick in eine Forschungsumgebung, die ihnen sonst verschlossen geblieben wäre. Keine Ausstellungstafel und keine Pressemitteilung hätte genau dasselbe leisten können. Der Livestream schuf ein außergewöhnliches Maß an Zugang und Transparenz – Transparenz, nicht Partizipation.
Looking back, I do not think the strength of the programme was the number of formats. It was the fact that they offered different ways into the same subject and served different purposes. Someone might first encounter the project in the local newspaper, at an exhibition in the village or through a Facebook post. Someone else might follow the science blog, attend a talk or watch archaeologists work under water. Not everybody needed the same entry point.
That is what I mean by an ecosystem.
And the principle goes well beyond science communication. More channels do not automatically create more understanding. A good communication architecture gives each format a clear purpose and connects it to what the organisation or project is trying to achieve.
For science communication and outreach, there is another requirement as well: accessibility should not come at the cost of substance. The goal is not to remove complexity until everything sounds simple. It is to create enough ways into a complex subject for people to understand why it matters.
This is the first in a short series on science communication, science outreach and participation in research, and on what changes when we treat them as connected but distinct parts of the same system.
This post draws on my article: Löw, C. (2026), “Wissenschaftskommunikation, Wissenschaftsvermittlung und Wissenschaftspartizipation zu den Unterwasser-Ausgrabungen im Attersee.” In: Die Pfahlbaustationen Seewalchen I und Weyregg II im Attersee/OÖ. Projekt Zeitensprung 2015–2017, OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, pp. 318–326. The volume is available from OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH. The volume is available from OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH.