Summer 2008

From the Chair

New members

Sci Comm news

Eurochat

Feature: Publicising non peer-reviewed science

Feature: New media, new opportunities

Feature: Spinning science

Event Report: Science and the embargo

Event Report: Podcasting and new media

Interview: Emma Morton, The Sun

Stempra newsletter

FEATURE: Breaking a golden rule of Science PR - promoting research that has avoided the peer review process

In a former life, prior to being dragged to the dark side (as my old colleagues would say) I was a real scientist. Therefore the one thing I do know all about is the vital importance of the peer review process in maintaining scientific integrity. Simply put, if the work hasn't been peer reviewed, it doesn't have scientific credibility and you do NOT tell the outside world about it. Listening to the discussion following the Stempra session at the 2008 BA Science Communication Conference it's clear that many science press officers share this point of view.

Given the above I'm still wondering why I spent most of March this year promoting a non-peer reviewed report which contained some very controversial messages on last summer's UK floods. This article is my attempt to persuade myself that I did do the right thing. I'm also hoping I can persuade the rest of the STEMPRA community that in exceptional cases non-peer reviewed science is also great science which should be made accessible to the wider world.

The story started last December when Terry Marsh, one of our leading hydrologists (that's a flood and drought scientist to the rest of us) approached me waving a copy of a draft report on last year's summer floods. Terry wanted his report published quickly and wished to avoid the normal peer review process in order to make this happen. On reading the draft content of the report I could see why. The text contained some necessary but probably controversial and unwelcome messages for the policymakers currently grappling with the thorny issues of climate change, flood management and public opinion. For example a key sentence in the draft executive summary stated: 'The river floods of summer 2007 were a very singular episode, which does not form part of any clear historical trend or show consistency with currently favoured climate change scenarios'. These words would be like a red rag to a bull to many in the media, particularly as a number of key academics and politicians had already stated that there was a direct link between climate change and the 2007 flood events.

It was very clear that the report would attract media attention whether we liked it or not. Having worked this out it was obvious that the best approach would be for our communications staff to be involved from the start rather than having to come in later and deal what could potentially be a messy aftermath. To put this another way, one side of my press officer instinct said "what a great story", the other told me to run for the hills and hide for six months!

For the next three months the CEH communications team worked with Terry and his co-authors to develop a comprehensive communications plan for the report. On the way we helped to redraft the report text to make it more public friendly, we advised on design issues, we wrote a press release and finally we persuaded Fiona Fox and the team at the Science Media Centre to let us hold a press briefing the day before publication. We also helped Terry and his team to circulate the draft to key stakeholders in the Met Office, Environment Agency, Defra and other UK Government departments and agencies. We wanted staff in these organisations to have advance warning of the publication to try and ward off any potential panic when they saw the inevitable headlines after publication. We carefully planned our contacts with the stakeholders, speaking to staff in their policy teams and also in each organisations' press office.

As we expected, the publication of the report on 11th March 2008 attracted significant media and stakeholder interest. At one point the story was second in the headline ticker on the main BBC website homepage. Clearly it managed to reach audiences far beyond the traditional science & nature columns. It's fair to say that the report authors did not like some of the headlines but in general we, and they, were very pleased with the way the story was covered. Many media outlets allocated large amounts of space giving the public the chance to see and examine the complex arguments and evidence underlying the report's key messages. Since the publication date we have been contacted regularly by journalists from TV and radio stations asking for more information on the work.

So did our approach work, and if it did, why did it work? To me the answer to the first question is unquestionably yes; we got great coverage for the report but without compromising the hard messages in the text or the hard science carried out by the authors. As to why it worked, well I think there were four reasons:

- First, the scientists at my organisation, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) already had a great track record of working with the national media on UK water issues. For example during the wet summer of 2007 we'd dealt with a large number of media queries related to the cause and extent of the floods. Journalists already knew our scientists and trusted them to supply accurate information. They knew we weren't pulling off a PR stunt.

- Second, for the last 20 years we have run the UK National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (NHMP) which is operated jointly by CEH and the British Geological Survey. NHMP has a remit from the UK Government to report on major hydrological events (e.g. floods and droughts). This gave the report writing team the legitimacy to publish outside the normal peer review process. In fact the need to publish quickly was to some extent forced on us by the Government who wanted our scientists to submit evidence to the public enquiries that are currently examining the summer 2007 floods event.

- Third, we managed to link the report to a recent peer reviewed paper by the lead authors which looked at flood trends in the UK. This paper was mentioned in the press release and in most of the answers given at the press briefing. The consistent message given was that this report was backed up by excellent, peer-reviewed, previously published work.

- Finally, I worked very hard to make sure my managers, both in the science and communication areas, understood that controversial messages are best handled with press office assistance from the start. As we got involved at the beginning of the process there was no need to drag us in at the end to sort out a big crisis.

On a personal level I've also thought about why I took the decision to promote the report. In reality it was simple, having read the draft text I quickly persuaded myself (and my bosses) that although the work hadn't been formally peer-reviewed it contained vitally important messages that needed highlighting to the wider world. These messages were backed up by excellent science. Put simply not informing the media and policymakers in this case would have been the wrong thing to do. Despite my initial fears I'm pretty certain that journalists still respect our water science work at CEH and would be happy to report on it again, even if it's not published in a peer reviewed journal.

Finally are there any lessons for the Stempra community from this experience? I would suggest that we should not be so quick to dismiss work that is published outside the peer review process. We should always consider each case on its individual merits and remember that rules are (sometimes) there to be broken.

Barnaby Smith
PR Manager, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
bpgs@ceh.ac.uk
07920 295384

The full 32 page report, 'The summer 2007 floods in England and Wales - a hydrological appraisal', is available as a pdf download from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology website: www.ceh.ac.uk.

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