Our journey into advanced science communication begins

“NEW FRONTIERS IN SCIENCE COMMUNICATION” is the quarterly magazine of the Foundation IDIS-Città della Scienza, born within the Erasmus+ Project “SCI-CO+ – High Professional Skills for Advanced Science Communication”, of which the Foundation is the promoter and coordinator, and which is carried out by a Consortium of eight organizations from five European countries. It is aimed not only at experts in the field – in particular managers and operators of science museums and science centres – but also: teachers of scientific subjects, university researchers, operators of public and private research centres, experts in scientific dissemination, in particular operators of publishing administration, experts in technological innovation, and young graduates who want to pursue a career in the sector. In addition, as SCI-CO+ is an advanced vocational training project, the magazine is also aimed at organisations in the VET sector.

With this editorial initiative we want to offer food for thought, updates and insights on all issues related to innovation in the field of science communication and to the training of the sector skills.

The magazine is organized with some fixed columns of a general character – Editorial, Special, News from SCI-CO+, Interviews, Events – to which are added, every quarter, articles about specialized topics.

The Editorial is a short introductory article developed by the Editorial Board to illustrate from a general point of view the criteria that guided the choice of the articles of that issue. The Special is the cover article; every quarter there will be an in-depth article on one of the general topics of interest of SciCo+, from the paradigms and methods of science communication to professional innovation in the sector, from innovative technologies for communication, to the teaching of scientific subjects in schools, from good practices in the field of scientific communication to European programs of interest for the sector. In this issue, the cover article is dedicated to the Fondazione IDIS – Città della Scienza and its experience gained during the pandemic. In some issues we will have the Interviews section in which an expert will be invited to discuss with a representative of the partnership one or more topics of interest. To these periodic contents,  further articles on specific technical-specialized topics will be added. In the News from SCI-CO+ column, the progress achieved by the SCI-CO+ Consortium will be presented. In this first issue, the column has been dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the fundamentals on which the SCI-CO+ Project is based and its main general results. Finally, the Events column will advertise the main initiatives (conferences, exhibitions, reviews, seminars) planned “in Europe and in the world” in the reference quarter.

The authors will be both representatives of the organizations of the SCI-CO+ Partnership and experts and technicians in the sector external to SCI-CO+ Consortium. We have chosen to address this opening issue to the organisations that make up the rich SCI-CO+ partnership and to the experiences they have developed in the field of innovation in recent years, so the authors of this issue are all members of these organisations and these articles deal with both the results of the early research phases carried out by the Project, and experiences and good practices of sector Partners.

This magazine has a further important purpose: to grow around the SCI-CO+ Project a community of practice and knowledge that can support over the years, through comparison and dialogue, not only innovation in science and technology communication but also bring the younger generations and, in particular, women, closer to education and technical-scientific training and to the professions in the sector. We hope that our readers will help us achieve this challenging goal by providing their contribution by subscribing to the specialized areas of the “Services” section of the portal at www.scicoplus.orghttps://www.scicoplus.org/. In the portal a special section is dedicated to this Magazine in which readers can enjoy the digital version with the support of a series of full text services in all issues published and any additional digital content.

Happy reading!