Professor Maja Horst Inaugural lecture

Why study science communication?

On October 7th 2014, Maja Horst was appointed Professor by the rector af UCPH. This will be celebrated by an inaugural lecture on February 27, 2015 at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication.

Congratulations!

Most societies have come to understand science as a key to their competitiveness and growth. Science Communication is therefore no longer simply a question of making science accessible to non-scientists. Understanding its role in modern knowledge societies warrants serious theoretical efforts.
Such efforts will involve the synthesis of empirical studies and an exploration of Science Communication’s importance for identity-formation as well as for the legitimacy and efficiency of scientific knowledge. To achieve this, we must not only study large-scale public engagement and dissemination activities, but also mundane interactions between popular fiction, media stories, press releases, scientists’ own accounts and day-to-day organizational storytelling.
In this lecture, Maja Horst will argue the necessity of studying Science Communication in a manner which draws upon several theoretical and interdisciplinary strands within the humanities and social sciences. The objective is to understand individual and collective sense-making about what science and scientific organizations both are and ought to be.

The lecture will be introduced by Dean of Humanities, Professor Ulf Hedetoft
After the lecture, department of Media, Cognition and Communication is hosting a reception at the balcony above the cantina in KUA building 23

Maja Horst is currently head of department of Media, Cognition and Communication and member of the Steering group in Center for Synthetic Biology. Maja Horst has an MA in Communication from Roskilde University (1996) and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from CBS (2003). She has published extensively in journals within the field of STS and received a number of research awards. She has continuously experimented with communicating science through spatial installations. For this work, she received the Danish Science Minister’s Communication Prize in 2009.