In addition to being a Researcher at the Energy Transition Initiative at NTNU (the Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Julius Wesche is the founder of the science communication consulting firm ‘Science Communication Accelerator.’ He aims to help accelerate the carbon zero energy transition to preserve our planet for future generations as well as empower researchers, universities, and research organizations to share more science online so that society is given the opportunity to make better-informed decisions. I sat down with Julius to delve deeper into motivating scientists to communicate their research, the Science Communication Accelerator Podcast, and challenging self-doubts.

Tell me more about the Science Communication Accelerator. What drove you to start the firm?

I would love to see that researchers, universities, and research organizations become more aware of their role in our national knowledge systems and to put more effort into communicating science in order to educate our societies. Currently, the official impact of research is tracked by the number of citations a research paper gets from other researchers. I think that is quite an odd way of tracking impact and that we need to become more aware that impact is what happens outside of the academic bubble. For this, we need to incentivize it correctly. In the future, I would love to see that the incentive system is adjusted, because if we do not communicate our research, then all we’re really doing as researchers is engaging in occupational therapy. 

The notion of impact beyond the ivory tower is an important one – especially in the age of social media. Is your firm’s podcast an attempt to bridge this gap?

I started the Science Communication Accelerator Podcast in order to make knowledge available on how science can be better communicated with social media. During my eight years at Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, I kept seeing gifted researchers create awesome studies, but not go the last step to actually make that knowledge available so that it can have a positive impact on the world. I just could not see that any longer and not do anything about it. So, I started to talk online about how science can be communicated better with the hope that some people would listen and apply the newly learned knowledge.

Despite all its shortcomings, social media is the best thing that could have happened to science communication because it allows us to communicate with people at an unprecedented scale. Social media took all the gatekeepers away and researchers and organizations can now communicate without almost any obstacle. Unfortunately, I do not see enough researchers, and especially universities and research organizations, taking advantage of this grand opportunity. With the Science Communication Accelerator, I want to create a knowledge hub – one that allows these actors to learn and get excited to start putting out content at scale.

Do you ever have any doubts as to the best way to get the message across to scientists and institutions that may not be convinced of the importance of communicating their work?

Yes – I think everyone has doubts and sometimes I still do. When starting out, I felt that digital science communication was a topic that could attract a crowd, and seeing that within five weeks my new science communication podcast got a thousand views was pretty amazing. Even though I was quite sure that it could work eventually, I was still surprised that it actually attract attention.

Some of those doubts can come from trying to balance both the energy transition work and the science communication work. Sometimes I feel psyched and almost high, and sometimes I feel I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. In one of these phases I decided to go down to a biweekly rhythm because, next to my normal work as a researcher and the other podcast that I run on the German energy Transition (enPower Podcast), I realized that I am not superman and that I cannot do everything at the same time. That said, most of the time my I feel very much alive and love it. The most exciting is that I was able to convince my boss here at NTNU to allow me to start yet another podcast. We just started an English-language podcast called the NTNU Energy Transition Podcast. Let’s see if I did not bite off too much to chew again (laughing).

Overall, I want to push as much as I can to create inspiring and empowering podcast episodes. In addition to the two energy-focused podcast, I will be continuously working on expanding the Science Communication Accelerator over the winter to be able to make more knowledge available and to do more consulting. In two years, I plan to summarize the knowledge I have gathered up to that point and write a book about how to communicate science online.

“Despite all its shortcomings, social media is the best thing that could have happened to science communication because it allows us to communicate with people at an unprecedented scale.”

Julius Wesche
Researcher & Scicomm Consultant

What would you like to tell scientists that want to start communicating their research on social media but are feeling overwhelmed with all of the different platforms, messaging styles, etc.?

I would say don’t overthink it. Just post, because speed is more important than perfection, and social media is a practitioner’s game. The earlier you get your hands dirty, the earlier you will learn what works and what doesn’t.