Co-hosted by the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences and the Canadian Association for Neuroscience
On Monday, April 25, the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences and the Canadian Association for Neuroscience welcomed the Honourable Senator Stan Kutcher for a session on science policy and advice.
Key takeaways:
- Scientists must engage in advocacy, it is an important part of their job
- We need more scientists in Parliament.
- In the absence of more scientists in Parliament, we need scientists and researchers to advocate on behalf of their communities, and highlight the important work they are doing.
- We have to help politicians understand how science is part of everything we do, and how if we don’t invest in basic science, we don’t have the tools and products required to improve people’s health and lives.
- Scientists and researchers need to be their own champions, and try to find other long-term science champions both in the House of Commons and in the Senate.
- We need to highlight how government investments need to be in creating a “science enterprise”, so that young people will want to stay in Canada instead of going elsewhere, or being put off from doing scientific research all together.
- It takes constant, repeated, and clear messaging. Fundamental science is a long-game, and communicating its impacts to politicians is a long-game.
- Canada’s scientists need to trumpet their successes more. While mainstream media doesn’t have as many scientific journalists as it used to, science communicators need to step up to fill the void and to tell the story of science.
How you can get involved:
- Check out what CSMB and CAN are doing on advocacy.
- Check-out Evidence 4 Democracy’s toolkit on Connecting With Your Political Representatives.
- Get involved with the Canadian Science Policy Centre, which hosts an annual conference, as well as other year-long programming.
If you are interesting in trying to meet with your local Member of Parliament to speak about the important work you are doing and the support the science
