POSTER NO: 527

Importance of communicating scientific information directly to the public

Kazuto Kato
Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, Ushinomiya-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

To deal with ethical, legal and social problems arising from bioscience including genome research, many guidelines and laws which regulate scientific and ethical conducts of research have been prepared or are being prepared in many countries. However, for those regulatory rules to be properly used in society, it is very important for the general public to have a good understanding of the current state of research activities. In other words, communicating scientific information to non-specialists is becoming more and more important for the proper development of bioscience.

To facilitate communication between the scientific community and general public, three things are important. (1) Improving educational systems in schools, (2) Raising level of understanding of science among journalists working in the media. (3) Organizing activities to promote direct conversations between scientists and non-specialists.

I am particularly interested in the third category of activities because I believe that talking to non-specialists will give scientists good opportunities to rethink what they are aiming at in their research. If scientists have more chances to talk about their research to lay people, understanding of research among the general public as well as the level of research among the scientific community will improve. In this presentation, I will show our experiences and future plans of activities in Japan particularly in the field of genomics. I will also discuss the implications of these activities for the research community as well as to society.