About NaWik

If science is to reach many people, it must be understandable and approachable. At the National Institute for Science Communication (NaWik), scientists learn how to successfully communicate with the public and the media.

Since it was founded in 2012 by the Klaus Tschira Foundation and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), NaWik has been teaching the basics of good science communication. With its tried-and-tested training and further education formats, NaWik aims to support researchers in communicating the goals, methods, results and challenges of their work in an understandable way and in conducting dialogues about them. The interactive seminars are led by experienced lecturers and can be booked on site at the customer’s premises, at the institute’s premises on the campus of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) or as virtual courses. The courses range from workshops on the basics of science communication, courses on writing, visualising and presenting, to professional media training. The online courses offered by NaWik on its e-learning platform, the WissKomm-Campus, also teach professional science communication.

In March 2022, NaWik also launched the WissKon network for communicating researchers. At the annual WissKon conference and the WissKon platform, scientists exchange views on communication issues. NaWik also operates the portal Wissenschaftskommunikation.de together with Wissenschaft im Dialog and KIT. Among other things, current #Scicomm topics are debated here, new formats are presented and research findings are shared.

Since 2019, NaWik has had its own research area in which practice-relevant questions of science communication are empirically analysed. The focus here is on evaluative science communication research. Building on this, NaWik now offers a wide range of services related to the evaluation of science communication, from consulting to the complete evaluation of Scicomm projects.

On 7 September 2020, NaWik organised the first WissKon – the NaWik conference for communicating scientists.
One message ran like a red thread through all the contributions: It is more important than ever that scientists communicate authentically about their work – and that this additional effort is also recognised.

The Wisskomm Campus will go online for its 10th anniversary in 2022 – and with it the new NaWik e-learning programme. Initially consisting of a basic course, the offer will be gradually expanded to include further online learning courses such as writing, social media and visualisation by 2023.

In November 2024, the number of seminars held will rise to over 1000 – not including e-learning courses.

The National Institute for Science Communication is a non-profit limited company. Its shareholders are the Klaus Tschira Foundation and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).