A few weeks ago we opened applications for the pilot year of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program. We’ve been excited to see applications coming in from individuals and potential host organizations. Some individuals are interested in joining the scientific community engagement field for the first time and others are current community managers, all from a wide variety of backgrounds and institutions. The potential host organizations we’ve been in touch with are also wide-ranging, from discipline-focused professional societies to major international research projects.
In our series of posts about results of the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve looked into what types of organizations are home to scientific communities, examined their communication channels and ways of planning activities, and analyzed scientific community managers’ backgrounds, skill sets, and how their positions are funded.
In our final blog post about survey results, we return to the topic of community managers’ skill sets, focusing on their top challenges and the areas where they want more training.
We’re back with more insight from the State of Scientific Community Management survey. Previous posts have explored aspects of the community management position, the nature of the organizations where communities are found, and features of the communities themselves such as their communication channels.
In this post we look at three findings about program and activity planning in communities. Read on to see how having a community manager leads to activities that are more frequent, strategically planned, and participatory.
We’re excited to announce that applications are open for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program through Sunday, October 16, 2016.
Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Fellows Program is in its pilot year. The program’s mission is to improve community-building and collaboration within scientific organizations, including both professional associations and research collaborations. The program will provide training and support to a cohort of scientific community managers for a full year.
You can learn more about the purpose and timeline of the program on our About page.
How to apply
We’re seeking two types of applicants for the fellowship: current scientific community managers, and individuals looking to enter the field and be placed in an organization. See our Become a Fellow page to read about what’s expected of Fellows during the program, and for info on the eligibility and selection criteria for each of these options.
We’re also keen to hear from organizations interested in hosting a Fellow. If your organization is interested in developing or facilitating your collaboration or community, please email us at communityfellows@aaas.org to start a conversation. You can read more about expectations during the program, eligibility, and application requirements for host organizations on the Host a Fellow page as well.
For more information about the program, including interviews with existing scientific community managers, see these related posts on the Trellis Blog.
In previous posts about our State of Scientific Community Management survey, we’ve explored what types of scientific organizations have communities and we’ve described features of scientific community managers’ training and skill sets and their funding.
Today, we’re looking at some properties of the actual communities: their communication channels and platforms. Read on to find out about online versus offline communication channels and the adoption of online community platforms.
One theme that emerged from our discussions was the importance of belonging. Read on for different interpretations of this value and how to foster it in your community.
In this post we explore the skillsets that scientific community managers rely on in their current roles. We asked our survey respondents to rate the importance of 5 key skill sets, originally delineated by The Community Roundtable for the broader field of community management outside science. Read on to learn about which skill set ranks highest, and how the rankings change depending on seniority.
It’ll come as no surprise that I spend a lot of my time thinking about community management. But in recent years that’s expanded from focusing on the strategy and mechanics of community-building, to thinking in more detail about the people that actually support group work: the community managers.
Through the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve collected data on all facets of the field. So far we’ve looked at scientific community managers’ education and training and identified which types of organizations are hiring them. We’ve also learned that insufficient funding is the number one reason why organizations lack community managers.
Today, we’re following up on this finding by digging a little deeper into the picture of funding for community managers. Read on for 3 key findings.
Last week I took part in a session at the ESOF16 conference on building interdisciplinary communities. ESOF – the EuroScience Open Forum – is a biennial conference focusing on various European science and science communication activities, with a mixture of different session formats.
In our session, one of the other presenters, Ismael Rafols, gave a good overview of some of the different barriers to successfully building community, which I’ve listed out below (taken directly from his slides).
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