The perennial discussion about scientists 'doing' outreach intensified this year, with lots of opinion and some data about who's doing it, who's fault it is that so few do it, what the roadblocks are, and how to alleviate them. Rather than host yet another tiresome round of the blame game (e.g. Scientists should do more outreach! Scientists suck at outreach!), the goal of this two-session track is to create a take-home resource for scientists hoping to do more and/or better outreach or trying to drum up enthusiasm for outreach in their departments/institutions and for those hoping to recruit more scientists to do outreach. In this session, we will focus on why scientists should want to do outreach. Drawing on the collective ScienceOnline expertise, we will brainstorm a list of ideas for incentivizing outreach that take into account the limitations (time, etc.) and barriers (stereotypes, etc.) that researchers face. The scientist-moderators for both sessions Karen James and Miriam Goldstein, and the public information officer-moderators are Matt Shipman and Meghan Groome.
Questions: - If the currency of a scientific career is peer-reviewed papers and grants, how can scientists be encouraged and supported to take time away from these activities for outreach? - What are the incentives to do outreach, and what are the limitations and barriers?