Who Speaks for Science? From Events to Ecosystems: A New Model for Science Communication in Europe

Over the last twenty years, science communication in Europe has undergone a profound transformation: from opening laboratories to the public, to the presence of researchers in urban spaces, and finally to the growing professionalization of science communication. This process has expanded the capacity of science to reach citizens, but it has also generated a structural change in the relationship between research and society. The main insight emerging from this evolution is that science communication is progressively becoming separated from the places where knowledge is produced. This is not a matter of content quality or individual competencies, but rather a systemic transformation that risks weakening the direct link between citizens and scientific institutions. When the narration of science is predominantly entrusted to external mediators, public trust tends to shift from institutions to individual communicative personalities. This process may reduce understanding of how research works and make the social and public value of scientific investment less visible. This position paper offers an action-oriented reflection: the challenge is not to reduce the professionalization of science communication, but to integrate communication expertise with a stronger and more structured presence of scientific institutions in the public sphere. Achieving this requires the development of a stable science communication ecosystem based on three main pillars: strengthening science communication offices within universities and research centres; training researchers in public communication as a complementary competence to research; developing new European funding lines aimed at building permanent public engagement capacities beyond models based on occasional events. Experience gained through European initiatives promoting dialogue between science and society, including those developed within the framework of the European Researchers’ Night, shows that trust is built when researchers, professional communicators and institutions collaborate in a coordinated and continuous way. The transition from an event-based model to an ecosystem-based model therefore represents a strategic priority: science should not only be communicated more effectively, but must remain visibly connected to the places and communities where it is produced.