Welcome to the PUS Blog!

Around the time PUS was launched two decades ago, public understanding of science was largely limited to science fiction. Since then, science communication scholars and teachers have used the platform of PUS to provide an interface between science and society, to open the doors to the walled world of science and technology, to explore the impressive range of life-changing research in a variety of areas, and to generate informed and nuanced discussion on controversial aspects of scientific research. We intend to expand the reach of these explorations and discussions through this blog, highlighting contemporary issues, linking current articles, and provoking debate in an enlarged public sphere.

So who are we? One of us is Priya Kurian, an Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Policy at the University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand. And the other is Debashish Munshi, an Associate Professor of Management Communication at the same University. Although our roots are in different disciplines, we share a common interest in making science accessible, equitable, and socially-relevant and are currently co-principal investigators of a Royal Society of New Zealand-funded Marsden project on “Sustainable citizenship: Transforming public engagement on new technologies”.

We see ourselves as facilitators. While we will ourselves make frequent posts, we will also invite and coordinate contributions from both science and social science scholars and students as well as from a range of people, often referred to as “the public”, for meaningful discussions on topics which may attract polarised opinions.

We look forward to your thoughts and comments. If you have specific topics or questions you would like to see discussed or debated on the blog, please post them to the blog and we will take them up and invite responses.