The list below was initially gathered for the benefit of people who are advertising a scicomm job on the psci-com list (which I run) and who wonder about other similar-ish lists. Although the initial focus of creating this page was to help people widen the reach of their job advert many of these are also discussion lists or communities of practice for sharing things other than jobs.
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Below is a list of groups, mailing lists, societies or organisations involved in science communication in some way (or which may be generally of interest) / public engagement with science.
Most have a focus on writing (or ‘producing content’) for a non-specialist* public audience. or engaging the public in research (which can also include patient and public involvement) Some networks are free to join, some will post job adverts free. There are others, these are just ones I’ve found so far…
*by which I mean ‘scicomm’ as opposed to scientific comms, which is communicating science to other scientists through science publishing and conferences or industry and stakeholder engagement etc.
I own psci-com, which is free to join and free to post stuff (use psci-com-request@jiscmail.ac.uk to ask about posting something if you’re not a member). Psci-com’s focus is on public science communication / engagement.
Virginia Schutte also has a Where to find science communication jobs list of lists 🙂
• ABSW – Association of British Science Writers (UK) 🇬🇧
• AHCJ – Association of Health Care Journalists (US) 🇺🇸
• AMRC – Association of Medical Research Charities (UK) 🇬🇧
• ArtsAdmin – their e-Digest is a roundup of opportunities for artists (wide remit). If your scicomm ‘thing’ is a crossover with film/TV/theatre etc this might be useful 🇬🇧
• ASDC – Association of Science and Discovery Centres (UK) 🇬🇧
• AstroMailbox – “If you give astronomy talks in schools, present public planetarium shows, do space art sessions with Brownies, welcome tourists to your observatory, run a school astronomy club, take your telescope out to public places, or anything else outside formal teaching then this list is for you.” (UK based but open to everyone) 🇬🇧 🌎 🛰 👽
• Australian Science Communicators – a forum 🇦🇺
• BIG Jobs Board 🇬🇧
• BIG Stem Communicators Network – formerly the British Interactive Group (UK) 🇬🇧
• CASW – Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (US) 🇺🇸
• CHAIN – Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network (UK) – NHS / Health & Social Care 🇬🇧
• CharityComms – may include science communication jobs, but will also include generic comms (marketing, social media etc). 🇬🇧
• Environmental Science Engagement (UK) 🇬🇧 – mailing list
• Freelance Writing Jobs (UK) 🇬🇧 – weekly round-up from Sian Meades-Williams. Science does not feature very often but I have seen one or two in there [link corrected Jan 2024]
• HIFA – Healthcare Information For All 🇬🇧 🌎
• Government Communications Services (GCS) jobs 🇬🇧 – all departments so not #scicomm-focused but one or two in there
• Involvement Jobs from Shaping Our Lives (UK) 🇬🇧 – for any engagement / co-production roles (not just science ones)
• ISC Science Communications Network – from the International Science Council (global) – “The ISC is convening a global network of science communicators across our community to learn, collaborate, network, and collectively advance science as a global public good.” 🌎
• Jiscmail – hosts over 10,000 subject-specific groups (mailing lists) primarily for academic audience (HE funding) but open to anyone.
• LinkedIn (Global) – search all groups here, examples include Science Communication Professionals | Science Communication & Engagement Community Forum #scicomm | for (what looks like) a more technical audience there’s Science Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation of Results
• London PEN – London Public Engagement Network (London) – site has been made private
• Mastodon instance – you can join any Mastodon server but this one is dedicated to science communication (at time of writing it’s temporarily closed to new submissions, but you’ll be able to migrate your account there, if you wish, when it reopens). View the public timeline, of Toots sent by Mastodon-using scicommers, or #scicomm more widely.
• MJA – Medical Journalists’ Association (contact) (UK) 🇬🇧
• Museums – Jobs Desk – The UK’s most extensive free vacancy listing source for museums and galleries (UK) 🇬🇧
• NASW – National Association of Science Writers (discussion lists) (US) 🇺🇸
• NHS Communicate – 🇬🇧 not a jobs hub but possibly useful to be aware of. They’ve published a report on 6 March 2024 called “The state of NHS communications” (PDF)
• NCCPE – National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement – helping universities engage with the public (UK), mailing list is NCCPE-PEN (form: Promote your public engagement in higher education job advert) 🇬🇧
• PECS (Public Engagement with Computer Science) (UK focus, global) – another one of mine, created as part of an EPSRC grant for public engagement champions with ICT / computer science research 🇬🇧 🌎
• PCST (Public Communication of Science and Technology network) (Global) 🌎
• PIF – Patient Information Forum (UK) 🇬🇧
• psci-com – Public communication of science / public engagement with science (UK focused, global) – mine, free to post but jobs or events must be clearly relevant to a public audience in some way (a Jiscmail mailing list). 🇬🇧 🌎
• SciCommOps – jobs announcement newsletter (Global) 🌎
• #SciCommChat – a weekly Wednesday evening (6pm GMT or 7pm BST) chat about matters #scicomm conducted on Twitter, just join in with the hashtag. From @SciCommClub
• Sci-Ed – Science Education mailing list
• Science Communication Jobs (Facebook, Global) 🇺🇸 🌎
• ScienceLondon (London) – dedicated to equitable science and scicomm
• Science Writing News Roundup – from Marianna Limas on Substack
• SEJ – Society of Environmental Journalists (US, global) 🌎
• STEM-AUTHORS – a new (Jan 2024) Jiscmail mailing list for people who write, or want to, STEM books for a public or academic audience 🇬🇧 🌎
• Stempra – STEM PR Associations (UK) 🇬🇧
• The SciCommer – scicomm news, events, opportunities (UK focus, global) 🇬🇧 🌎
• Twitter – add #Scicomm and Jobs to the tweet to increase reach (Global) – note that ‘scicomm’ refers to ‘public’ communication of science and if your job isn’t about that it’s probably not particularly helpful to use that hashtag.
• WFSJ – World Federation of Science Journalists 🌎
• WISE – Women into Science and Engineering offers paid spots for employers to advertise STEM roles (which don’t have to be science communication or public engagement roles). Via this tweet.
For scientific, or scientific / medical communication roles
• Royal Meteorological Society Jobs Board – for jobs related to that. Phd and post-doc roles (early career researchers) are free to post, others carry a charge.
• tscicom – for technical scientific communication posts. This is a site created by me as I’d not found another example. It’s free for now (not done much with it, no audience yet!) but if it becomes a going concern I will eventually charge people to post on it…
Places that only very occasionally carry scicomm-related jobs but worth a look
- GOV.UK’s website
- Sell goods or services to the public sector – find a tender, contracts finder, become an approved supplier for public sector organisations (!).
- DWP’s Find A Job search – they don’t have a category for scicomm so search for relevant keywords. There are generally over 100,000 jobs listed but they include everything (drivers, construction, care workers). There are scientific / technical jobs in there but not much relating to science writing (I glance at this site periodically and send stuff I find to psci-com).
- UK – Public Sector Contracts – this gathers up public tenders greater than £10,000 and it is incredibly rare to see anything there that relates to science communication, but as it’s happened a couple of times in the last year I’ve included it. I know nothing about tendering and find the website interesting but a bit obtuse (is it currently out for tender? Has someone won it? Why are there two copies of the tender?), but I don’t worry as it’s not for me 🙂 There’ll be some overlap with pages linked in the GOV.UK site above.
- Unitemps – university-jobs for students and graduates. (Example of ad shared in Jan 2023 with the psci-com list)
scicommjobs - science communication jobs 