Comunicar las ciencias en las universidades (original) (raw)

2023, Campo Universitario. Revista de Educación Superior

Currently, it is assumed that universities should promote access, communication and social appropriation of sciences. It is enough to read the declaration of the Association of Universities of the Montevideo Group made on the occasion of the III World Conference on Higher Education, in which representatives of 41 regional universities emphasize the interest and commitment of the institutions in: "promoting democratic access to the benefits of knowledge generation. The commitment to open science, to publication and dissemination in non-proprietary media, to the use of scientific achievements for purposes associated with the general welfare" (AUGM, 2022:5). However, these were not always identified as objectives of the university, nor of scientific and technological activity (S&T) in general. Rather, they respond to a gradual-and not finishedprocess through which society's contracts with the State, the sciences and universities mutated. This article presents an overview of science communication in Argentine universities based on the analysis of the most recent background on the subject. For this reason, the fields of Science, Technology and Society (STS) and Public Communication of Science (PCS) are taken up again, in an articulated manner, both contribute to unravel the evolution and changes produced in S&T and how these have repercussions and are redefined in Latin American universities. The following is a presentation of current research that addresses the issue through a series of guiding questions: Firstly, what is understood by science communication in universities and what are the practices that are relevant; secondly, from where are the activities aimed at the circulation of knowledge carried out, that is, from what functions or "symbolic spaces" of the institution itself is science communication carried out; thirdly, who intervenes in the practices and how do they do it? Finally, general reflections on science communication in the universities studied are presented, as well as some possible paths for future studies on the subject.