Earlier this year we challenged the scientific community to enter our State Your Mission Challenge and create a mission statement for their science outreach efforts. To our delight, our challenge was accepted and we had 20 wonderful submissions via Twitter and Instagram.
How we chose a winner
We had a specific set of criteria for choosing a winner:
- The mission statement must be concise, no more than a few sentences.
- The mission statement must be complete, addressing the Who, How, What and Why of the proposed science outreach effort
- The proposed outreach effort must be innovative and engaging
Each of us independently reviewed all the mission statement submissions, which were curated in a Twitter Moment, and proposed our top 3 choices. Choosing a winner was not an easy task, but after some debate we came to an agreement about which submission met all our criteria and had the most votes.
And the winner is….
Without further ado, the winner of ScicommJC State Your Mission Challenge is:
My 2018 mission statement for the @scicomm_jc challenge. #scicommjc pic.twitter.com/1NS7DiSjsp
— Gabriel-Philip Santos (@PaleoParadoX) February 6, 2018
@Paleoparadox won the winning spot because in our view Gabriel has a complete and concise mission statement, focusing on a clear under served audience, proposing the innovative approach of using the pervasive power of pop culture for science outreach.
Congratulations Gabriel and the @Cosplay4Science team, we can’t wait to have you as a guest of honor in our next Twitter chat and podcast.
Honorable mentions
We were thrilled to receive so many fantastic submissions, and even though only one winner was chosen, we felt some needed special mention for either the quality or the level of potential impact of their outreach. So, we chose three submissions for an honorable mention:
1- @Latinolabs for the potential impact and the dire need for their outreach effort. We agree with @Latinolabs, scientists in the media all do tend to look the same, which does not accurately reflect the true representation of the diverse community of scientists.
Why do all scientists in media look the same? Where are the women, Latinx, and non-white scientists? LatinoLabs brings together Latinx scientists to produce short, bilingual podcasts highlighting the humanity of doing science over results for non-scientists @scicomm_jc #scicommjc
— LatinoLabs (@latinolabs) February 7, 2018
2- @MS71541719 Mark Smith for the potential impact of the unique perspective Mark can provide as a former climate change skeptic. Mark’s outreach efforts have the potential of breaking through the echo-chamber of climate change advocates and reaching out to the climate change skeptic community based on their common conservative values.
3- @Simplebiologist for a complete and concise missions statement and the high quality of explanatory videos making the latest scientific research accessible.
3 scientific papers are published per minute, but they're hidden behind paywalls and full of jargon. I bring newly published research to life by translating papers into fun animated videos for non-science adults. @scicomm_jc #scicommjc https://t.co/lTtHIQDGPE
— Kate Bredbenner (@simplebiologist) February 6, 2018
We would like to thank everyone who participated in our State Your Mission challenge. We hope that the mission statement you spent time creating help guide your science outreach efforts for 2018 and beyond.
What’s next
Gabriel (@PaleoparadoX) will be a guest of honor at one of our Twitter chats, and on our newly established podcast. If you’d like to be notified of when this would happen and of our future initiatives, please subscribe to our mailing list.
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