By Shantel Guillaume
What use is scientific knowledge if it does not reach those who need it most? This question permeates the research presented by Prof. Yelka Aguilera Santos at the Fifth National Scientific Congress of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), held in August 2026 in La Paz, Bolivia.
Public Communication of Science and STEM Education were the central themes of the research presented by Prof. Aguilera Santos, Science Engagement Officer of the Journal of Latin American Sciences and Culture (JLASC). Drawing on the Communication for Development framework articulated by Luis Ramiro Beltrán (2006), the study adopts a perspective that positions communication processes as drivers of social transformation, citizen participation, and democratic development. Public Communication of Science, the research argues, shares common ground with this framework: socializing knowledge demands dialogic and participatory processes.
UNESCO (2015) promoted STEM education—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—as a strategy to develop scientific, technological, and innovation competencies. Cultivating these competencies naturally leads to a scientific culture, where science is understood and valued for its genuine utility to society.
The primary objective of this investigation was to analyze the contribution of Public Communication of Science and STEM Education as strategies in the process of building a scientific culture within university education. A mixed-methods approach—qualitative and quantitative—was employed, combining exploratory and descriptive study designs with deductive and comparative methods.
The research examined dimensions related to access, interest, understanding, valuation, and participation in scientific communication, alongside aspects linked to technology, problem-solving, practical application, integration, and teamwork within STEM Education.
The study focused on students from two distinct fields of study: Communication at the Universidad del Valle (UNIVALLE) and Bioimaging Sciences at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA). This comparison allowed for an examination of perceptions and experiences among students with differing levels of engagement with scientific and technological content.
The findings revealed notable differences between medical sciences students and communication students regarding their perceptions of the role of communication in understanding science. A persistent conception remains that scientific knowledge is generated exclusively through research in traditional laboratories, rather than through the social sciences. Nevertheless, both groups converge on a shared recognition: the importance of making science accessible and understood by the broader citizenry.
The most significant conclusion of this study is that Public Communication of Science constitutes a vital strategy for the educational development of STEM competencies—providing media and content that foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and practical application—thereby laying the foundations for building a scientific culture. Knowledge that is not communicated is not appropriated; and knowledge that is not appropriated cannot transform.
