We are pleased to announce the winners of the first ASAPbio preprint communication competition, which aimed to communicate to a wide audience the value proposition of preprints as a tool for research communication.

Preprints played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic, speeding up the dissemination of scientific findings that led to a quicker understanding of the disease, SARS-CoV2 biology, and the development of vaccines and therapeutics. Journalists are increasingly putting preprint research in the spotlight through media outlets, which has, in turn, increased scientists’ awareness of preprints across disciplines. However, the public may not be broadly familiar with the science publishing process or with preprints’ place within it. Therefore, it is increasingly important to reach out to non-scientists to increase their understanding of why and how science communication advances progress, both before and after peer-review.

Organized by the 2021 ASAPbio Fellows Tomas Aparicio, Ksenia Kuznetsova, Allan Ochola, Piragyte-Langa and Claudia Vasquez, the competition aimed to reward novel and creative ways to engage with the public about preprints. Everyone interested in science communication was invited to participate, with no restrictions based on background, location, profession, or career stage. There were three categories for submissions: poetry, visual art and short videos.

Following review of the entries by our judges Joana Carvalho (Communications Officer at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Portugal & Science Illustrator), Liam Holt (Associate Professor NYU Grossman School of Medicine & co-Founder of Science Sketches) and Dasapta Erwin Irawan (Lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia & co-founder of RINarxiv), we are pleased to announce the winners in the categories of poetry and visual art. Upon review of entries, the third category for video was designated as vacant.

The winners

Poetry

“Imagine” by Supriya Vartak

If John Lennon was a scientist in support of preprints, open science and communication, inclusion, equity, diversity, and transparent peer review – this is what he would write. 

Presenting here, my version of the famous song, “Imagine” written by Lennon in 1971. 

Sing along, won’t you?

Visual art

“The benefits of preprints, an Infographic” by Alexandra Tichy 

What we learned from this competition

Effectively communicating the latest scientific findings is critical, not only for researchers, but also to widen the reach of the research and to build the public’s trust in science and the research process. At the same time, engaging with the public about science is not always straightforward. As we close this competition, we reflect on a few items we learned through the project:

• We did not receive as many submissions as we hoped for; this may be due to a combination of factors, such as the summer period, visibility or the lack of familiarity with the scientific publishing system.
• We were hoping to engage with members of the public -students, teachers, anyone with an interest in science – but entries came mostly from individuals involved in research. This may reflect the channels of communication we used e.g. not everyone is on Twitter and our followers likely involve academics. For future iterations of this or other related initiatives, it may be important to consider what channels of communication may work best to interact and engage with non-specialists audiences.

And of course, we are grateful to all participants for their interest, and extend our congratulations to the winners!

We view broad engagement with different audiences as an important element of science communication and we will consider future competitions and other activities to engage with both the scientific community and the general public.