UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de marzo de 2014 vol.15, No.03

ABSTRACT

The Science Communication Offices at UNAM



Gabriela Frías and Aleida Rueda


Although the Science Communication Offices are not new in Europe or the United States, where some of them have over fifty years of operation, in Mexico, particularly in the Institutes of Scientific Research at UNAM, these are relatively recent. Since the first office focused to spread science appeared at the Institute of Biomedical Research in 1995, these offices have been increasing in number and professional staff to work in them. In their short time, some of them have strengthened some successful projects that promote scientific knowledge both inside and outside the institution. In this article, we describe the communication strategies from three Science Communication Offices: the ones at the Institutes of Astronomy, Nuclear Sciences and Physics, specifically. However, the lack of homogeneous parameters and requirements have resulted in offices with dissimilar objectives, structure and activities that have produced a rich variety of strategies for communicating science and at the same time it hampers the creation of parameters for its evaluation, resources and hiring staff as well as its importance and continuity within each institute.



Keywords: Office, communication, science, UNAM, institute, research, journalism, press.