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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Disaster Communications
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1519438
This article is part of the Research TopicCommunication Strategies in Public Health DisastersView all 3 articles
Science Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences, Challenges and Expectations from the Perspective of Scientists in Austria
Provisionally accepted- 1Department of Public Health, Health Services Research and Health Technology Assessment, UMIT TIROL - University for Health Sciences and Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria
- 2Department of Psychology and Sports Medicine, UMIT TIROL - University for Health Sciences and Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria
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The COVID-19 pandemic put science in the spotlight like no other event before, but also created room for uncertainties, misinformation, and speculation. We used a qualitative research design and conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 scientists from various disciplines in Austria to shed light on their experiences and challenges with science communication during the pandemic as well as wishes and expectations for science communication in the future. The challenges most frequently mentioned by scientists refer to a lack of time to engage in science communication, uncertainty due to insufficient training in science communication, dealing with discrepancies between scientific advice and political decisions, and public skepticism towards science.Although almost all interviewees reported personal attacks via email and social media after public appearances, they emphasized the importance of transparency and openness in science to build trust and public understanding of scientific processes, despite such attacks.From the scientists’ perspective future strategies should involve integrating science communication into university curricula and expanding scientific education in schools. Moreover, scientists ask for enhancing transparency in political decision making, explicitly distinguishing between scientific recommendations and political decisions. Scientists point out, that during the COVID-19 pandemic new transdisciplinary networks have been established, which have helped to improve and extend research collaboration past the pandemic and should therefore be maintained and developed in the future.
Keywords: science communication1, Covid-192, Health Communication3, public health disaster4, Qualitative research5, interview study6
Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lorenzoni, Hallsson, Flatscher-Thöni, Förster and Schusterschitz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lára R. Hallsson, Department of Public Health, Health Services Research and Health Technology Assessment, UMIT TIROL - University for Health Sciences and Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.