Food scientists fail to communicate

Communication is poor between scientists involved with the large food research projects funded by the European Commission (EC) under the EU’s framework Programme (FP) and the wider EU population.

That was the verdict of Maive Rute, the European Commission’s (EC’s) new director of research. She was speaking at the Food Science day in Brussels last week, organised by the CommNet - the communication managers in EU-funded food projects. Rute, director of DG Research, said regarding the dissemination of results from the FP6 round of projects: “I’m afraid we can’t be fully happy with it since the FP6 research results are still rather difficult to access.”
Rute argued that to disseminate the results more widely - particularly in the important areas of obesity and health - scientists and other researchers involved should be trained to communicate more effectively with consumers. The EC funds much of this work to improve consumer lifestyles and food consumption patterns in an attempt to reverse the obesity epidemic spreading across the EU.
She also slammed FP6 web sites for being focused more on “internal communications” and for keeping research consortia partners informed about developments rather than aiming them at a lay audience. She further criticised these web sites for not being updated or even disappearing once projects had finished. Rute added that just one-third of project teams published articles on their findings in consumer publications and only 12 tried to get their results aired on TV.
Moreover, she said: “The messages [emanating from research] are not always crystal clear.” Rute cited contradictory advice regarding fish consumption, where the benefits from increased intakes of polyunsaturated fatty acids were offset by concerns about increased intake of heavy metals when people eat more fish.
Rute called for experts on communication to be more involved in research projects. She said that next year DG Research would start working with “professional media partners” to ensure the wider dissemination of projects it funded. There were several high profile media events planned for 2010 covering food innovation and healthy lifestyle and diet, she added.
“The EC will continue funding research on communications on the risk and benefits [of different diets to the public],” said Rute. “We are also thinking it might be useful to introduce additional training for food scientists to help them see how the media functions and how to present their points of view in an understandable and accessible language.” She went on to describe policy changes planned within DG Research which now had a “vision” based around a “knowledge-based bio-economy”