Therefore I plan! I like planing a lot – those of you who know me – know how much I like making plans. My reasoning is that if I make enough plans, at least few of them would pan out and that’s better than nothing. It is the love for planning that I part of the nature of a scientist, for what is research if not endless planning and execution of experiments?
Scircle Ltd
As you probably know, in 2018 I started my own science communication initiative Scricle. While I have currently a full-time job, I do try to expand my scicomm activities via this brand. And the efforts are paying off!
In the spring of 2019, I will have the amazing chance to speak at the 1st Global Harmonisation Initiative World Congress on a topic intrinsically related to the importance of science communication. The tentative programme is already up on their website, so stay tuned for more details and if you come to the congress (registration is already open) do come to say “hi”!
Next to this, I will work further to develop the tools available for scientists both online and my personal abilities to help. I started this new section (it is published both here on the blog and on the Scircle webpage) where I’ll summarise different talks and workshops I give in the form of infographics so they can be hopefully useful for people who were not able to hear the whole thing.
Hopefully, this skill-workout will become even more prominent if my application to participate at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne in July. Keep fingers crossed I get in, cause I’m going to be sharing a lot of the cool stuff that goes one there!
Science for the pub(lic)
Science festivals and open events organised for the citizens are becoming more and more popular! This is what I will dip my toes in during 2019:
Pint of Science will pour over Belgium for the second time in May 2019. After the overwhelming success of the 2018 first edition, we – a bunch of science nerds and volunteers, are looking to surpass our last-year-selves by making bigger, better and altogether more fun festival in 2019. I am currently tasked to be an event manager for a topic related to Arts and Science, so if you are interested in joining my team or you are willing to share your project of interfacing arts with research – drop me a message on my email and I’ll be happy to talk about it more!
Bringing science to the interested people in the cozy and chill settings of a bar is a popular theme. This way, we can not only learn something new, but can also talk to the researchers and connect with them on a more human level. What’s not to like about that? Hence, a brand new initiative we kicked-off in Belgium late in 2018 is the PUBhD Brussels.
With that initiative we also aim to help young researchers get more comfortable talking about their research, because that would inevitably help them stand out from the crowd. You can find an overview of the first event here and you can follow us of Facebook and Twitter if you are interested in the events for 2019. We are also looking for brave scientists to share their passion for research.
And finally, from the already existing plans, I am extra jazzed up, because my proposal for a stand-up comedy night to the Sofia Science Festival in May 2019 was accepted. Still waiting for the final details, but after having done science stand-up for the first time in my mother tongue this year, I can’t wait for this event! It is the biggest pop-science event in Sofia, Bulgaria and I’m hoping for by far the biggest audience I’ve had so far. Stay tuned for details!
The Incubatorium Blog
This blog is not going anywhere!
In 2019, I hope to be able to bring you few awesome guest writers to mix things up a little bit (some secret missions are in full swing, but I will keep you on your toes until published). If you want to write for this blog and you feel you have a fitting story – pitch it to me on my email!
Also, I really hope to have time to write more frequently for the BrightOwl blogs. It is so much fun writing on topics related, but conceptually different than the ones here, but I wish I also had a time-turner…
Last, but not least, I hope to get few male scientists for The Poster Session part of the blog. Women in STEM seem to be much less shy when it comes to being part of this and I really want to have equality of scientists, no negative, nor positive discrimination are my cup of tea!
I'll sleep when I'm dead!
A wise man once said “Gonna live while I’m alive – I’ll sleep when I’m dead”…
Well ok – it was actually Bon Jovi in his similarly titled song, but I don’t know him personally so he might as well be wise… Point is, he sings about endless partying in that song, and science communication for me is exactly that. So with a bit of luck, I will be able to do all I’ve planned well and some more on top of it in 2019.
Love all of your plans ;-). Good luck with the science comedy in Bulgaria! I don’t know whether you can also invite English speaking scientists/comedians? Anyway, If you do, I’ll be happy to meet you up with some really funny scientists to book.
It won’t be the best fit in Bulgaria since it’ll be in Bulgarian, but I’m always on the lookout for scientists who are funny for the local Bright Club and similar events. Do poke me on email if someone is interested in doing it. 🙂