Alan Irwin has already come to Brazil four times and says “I have always come home with very happy memories”. This time, he will participate in a plenary session on "Science Communication and the audiences", during the 13th PCST in Salvador, which he sees as “a great chance to take stock of what is happening across the global scene of science communication”.

Dean of Research at Copenhagen Business School, in Denmark, a member of the Strategy Advisory Board for the UK Global Food Security Programme and a visiting professor at the Department of Management at the University of Glasgow, Alan Irwin has published on issues of science and technology policy, scientific governance, risk, and science-public relations. When asked about the Danish reality regarding the public engagement with Science, he explains that there is a strong history of public engagement, marked by the work of the Danish Board of Technology, known as a pioneer of consensus conferences and public dialogue. In this sense, he emphasizes that “the idea of dialogue is very much bound together with the Danish sense of national identity.  For Danes, consensus is not about taking the easy option but building a shared sense of direction through debate and (sometimes) direct disagreement”. On the other hand, Irwin points out that he doesn`t want to suggest that Denmark has a perfect record in this field, arguing that if public engagement with science was perceived as granted by the Danes, there would have the risk of it become so normal that nobody would fight for it anymore.

In the plenary session during the 13th PCST, Irwin intends to bring into discussion the relationship between the "deficit model" (which suggests that the public is scientifically lay and that this information gap must be filled by his exposure to science communication and scientific literacy) and the democratic approach (which is characterized by a concern with social inclusion and with learning from what ordinary people have to say).
 
Irwin draws attention to the fact that, very often, these two approaches of public communication of S&T are contrasted. However, for him, the most important is to reflect if we simply moved from deficit model to the democratic one or if the two models can coexist, and mainly, what do all these discussions mean for a session that proposes to debate “science communication and the audiences”.

Expectations of Alan Irwin for the 13th PCST are the best possible. “I am very excited to find out more concerning the development of science communication in Brazil, what new ideas and new approaches do you have and how can we, Europeans, learn from that. It is always interesting to compare national experiences and to see new initiatives cropping up in different places”.