In the last weeks, as a response to the coronavirus outbreak and the spread of scientific misinformation, we have started to work on understanding better how scientific communication is being transformed by the pandemic and tensions arising between scientists and the public. So far, we published a preprint which was referenced in Science Magazine. Now we have also received some funding from TU Delft and we are participating with the CWTS COVID-19 Research Programme.

Scientific communication in times of Corona virus

Along with health and social challenges, the corona virus also causes communication challenges driven by the (lack of) information or misinformation. The scientific community is facing serious communication challenges which put to the limit the capacity of the scientific communication system in order to work efficiently. The purpose of this project is to provide analytical tools that help decision making on the strategies pursued by institutions and research organizations on coordinating their scientific efforts to communicate their results.

In this line of work I am collaborating closely with Tina Nane, Rodrigo Costas, Daniel Torres-Salinas and Pedro A. Castillo-Valdiviesa. With Tina and Rodrigo we have been experimenting with the use of dashboards as interactive tools to disseminate findings. Daniel, Pedro and I published a preprint on the growth of COVID-19 literature which was featured in Science Magazine. All of them are part of the team of the funded project. Hopefully soon, we will have new outputs to share.