When science communication training becomes a webinar

Recently I came across a 2025 post from the European Geosciences Union offering a free science communication training series for researchers.

Initiatives like this are so valuable. They make communication training accessible to large numbers of researchers and help introduce ideas that many scientists may not encounter during their formal training.

Online series are particularly good at this kind of exposure. A well-designed session can introduce useful frameworks for thinking about audiences, structure, storytelling, or public engagement.

But exposure and development are not quite the same thing.

Communication skills tend to improve through repeated attempts to explain complex ideas to people who do not already share the same assumptions. Someone tries to explain their research, notices confusion in the room, adjusts the explanation, receives feedback, and tries again.

That process is difficult to compress into a webinar.

Online training certainly has its place, especially when the goal is to introduce concepts or reach large groups. But the moment when communication ability really begins to shift usually happens somewhere else: in smaller groups, with time to practice, and with other researchers asking questions that force you to clarify your thinking.

Perhaps the real question for institutions is not whether researchers should have access to communication training. That question is already answered.

The more interesting question is where researchers have the opportunity to practice.