Scholarly Publishing vs Public Science Communication: What’s the Difference?

Scholarly publishing and public science communication serve different audiences and produce different results. Learn why research often needs both.

A research paper and a public-facing research video can explain exactly the same science.

But they have very different jobs.

Scholarly publishing is primarily designed to communicate research within the academic and professional community, establish a formal research record and allow other specialists to evaluate, use and build on the work.

Public science communication is designed to help people outside that specialist community understand what the research is about, why it matters and how it relates to them or the wider world.

One does not replace the other.

And confusing the two is one of the reasons so much excellent research gets published without ever really being communicated.

What is scholarly publishing?

Scholarly publishing is part of the wider system of scholarly communication through which research is created, evaluated, disseminated and preserved.

It includes academic journal articles, scholarly books, conference proceedings, preprints, datasets and other research outputs. Peer-reviewed journal publishing remains one of its most recognisable forms.

A scholarly research paper is normally written primarily for people who already understand the field.

That matters.

The reader may already understand the terminology, previous literature, methodology and broader scientific context.

The author therefore does not need to start by explaining what a gene is, what climate modelling means, why groundwater matters or how a clinical trial works.

They can get into the detail.

That is exactly what scholarly publishing needs to do.

The paper provides methods, evidence, results, limitations, references and enough detail for other specialists to assess the research and potentially build on it.

Its job is not to entertain someone scrolling through YouTube.

Its job is to contribute properly to the scholarly record.

What is public science communication?

Public science communication starts from a completely different place.

The audience cannot be assumed to understand the subject already.

They may have never heard of the research field, the terminology, the methodology or even the problem the research is trying to solve.

So the communication has to provide context before detail.

A public-facing piece of research communication might be:

• an animated research video
• a short documentary
• a podcast
• a news article
• an infographic
• a social media video
• a plain-language explanation
• a public lecture
• a school resource
• a patient information resource
• a museum or exhibition piece
• content produced for a community affected by the research

Strictly speaking, public engagement and public communication are not always the same thing.

Public communication can involve communicating information outwards to an audience. Public engagement often goes further and involves interaction, listening, participation or collaboration with the public.

UK Research and Innovation describes public engagement broadly as activity that helps break down barriers between research, innovation and society and stresses that meaningful engagement can involve dialogue and two-way interaction.

For researchers simply trying to explain and disseminate a newly published study beyond academia, “public science communication” is often the more accurate description.

Scholarly publishing and public communication are trying to achieve different results

This is the important bit.

You cannot judge both types of communication using the same measures because they are trying to achieve different things.

	Scholarly publishing	Public science communication
Primary audience	Researchers and specialists	Non-specialists and wider audiences
Assumed knowledge	Usually relatively high	Usually little or none
Main purpose	Record and communicate research	Explain why the research matters
Typical format	Journal paper, book, proceedings	Video, animation, podcast, article, social content
Language	Specialist and technical	Clear and accessible
Detail	High	Selective
Peer review	Often central	Usually not applicable
Discovery	Academic databases, journals, search engines	Search, social media, video platforms, news, communities
Useful outcomes	Citations, academic discovery, evidence, further research	Understanding, awareness, reach, interest, stakeholder communication
Starting question	What did we discover and how?	Why should someone care about this?

Neither column is better.

They simply solve different problems.

A research paper has to contain things a public communication piece does not

Take a hypothetical paper investigating a new treatment for pulmonary fibrosis.

The scholarly paper might need to explain:

• the experimental design
• recruitment criteria
• control groups
• molecular mechanisms
• statistical analysis
• confidence intervals
• previous literature
• limitations
• supplementary data

Those details are essential.

Another scientist evaluating the study needs them.

But if you are trying to explain the same research to someone whose parent has pulmonary fibrosis, you probably don’t start with the statistical model.

You start with pulmonary fibrosis.

What is happening in the lungs?

Why does it make breathing difficult?

What are the limitations of existing treatment?

What did the researchers discover?

Could it eventually make a difference to patients?

Then, once the person understands the problem, you can explain the science behind the possible solution.

Same research.

Different audience.

Different approach.

Different result.

Simplifying research does not mean changing the science

This is another common misunderstanding.

Public communication is sometimes treated as though making research understandable means making it less accurate.

It shouldn’t.

Good science communication does not remove the important caveats, turn preliminary findings into cures or pretend an association proves causation.

The science remains the science.

What changes is the amount of prior knowledge expected from the audience.

A specialist paper might reasonably say:

“The intervention resulted in significant attenuation of fibroblast activation.”

A public-facing explanation might first explain what fibroblasts are, what happens when they become overactive and why this contributes to scarring.

You are not removing the science.

You are giving somebody the information they need in order to understand it.

There is a big difference.

Is a plain-language summary public communication?

It can be.

A good plain-language summary can be extremely useful.

But changing a few scientific terms does not automatically turn scholarly writing into effective public communication.

We have all seen “plain-language” research summaries that are still several pages long, packed with terminology and written with almost exactly the same structure as the academic paper.

They may technically be easier to read.

That doesn’t necessarily mean somebody outside the research community will find them, read them or understand why the research matters.

Public communication has to consider more than vocabulary.

It has to consider:

Who is the audience?

What do they already know?

Why might they care?

What information do they actually need?

What format are they likely to consume?

Where will they encounter it?

What do we want them to understand afterwards?

Those questions are very different from the questions being answered during academic publication.

Does open access mean research has been communicated to the public?

No.

And this distinction is particularly important.

Open access can remove a major barrier to accessing scholarly research.

That is valuable.

But access and understanding are not the same thing.

Putting a highly technical research paper online where anybody can theoretically read it does not suddenly mean it was written for everybody.

Imagine placing an aircraft maintenance manual online for free.

It is now accessible.

That does not mean most people can repair an aircraft.

The same principle applies to research.

A paper can be:

published,

peer reviewed,

open access,

indexed,

given a DOI,

available through Google,

and still be almost completely inaccessible in practice to somebody without specialist knowledge.

Open access solves an access problem.

Public science communication tries to solve an understanding problem.

Research often needs both.

Why communicate research outside scholarly publishing?

Because the people who can benefit from research are not limited to the people who publish papers themselves.

Depending on the subject, that wider audience might include:

patients,

families,

teachers,

farmers,

engineers,

businesses,

charities,

healthcare professionals,

policymakers,

funders,

schools,

community organisations,

industry,

journalists,

or simply interested members of the public.

UKRI’s public engagement guidance explicitly recognises that connecting research with society can help make research more relevant, increase public understanding and support, and contribute to research impact.

None of that means every research paper needs to become a viral TikTok video.

It means thinking seriously about who else could benefit from understanding the work.

Scholarly publishing asks for completeness. Public communication asks for selection.

This is probably one of the easiest ways to explain the difference.

A scholarly paper often needs to give other specialists enough information to understand and evaluate the research properly.

Public communication needs to decide which parts of that information are most important for a particular audience.

That selection is not an academic shortcut.

It is communication.

If a researcher has spent eight years studying a molecular pathway, almost every detail may feel important to them.

It probably isn’t equally important to somebody encountering the subject for the first time.

A good public communicator therefore has to make decisions.

What does the audience need to understand first?

What can be explained visually?

Which details are essential?

Which details can be left in the paper for people who want to go deeper?

What is interesting about the research?

What is surprising?

What problem does it help us understand?

Why was the research carried out in the first place?

This is why simply asking researchers to “summarise the paper” often produces poor public communication.

Summary and communication are not quite the same thing.

Publication is not the end of dissemination

This is probably the distinction we explain most often at SciTube.

A researcher may understandably say:

“My research is already published.”

Of course it is.

But publication and wider dissemination are different stages.

The journal paper gives the research a formal scholarly home.

Public communication helps the research travel beyond that home.

The same research can therefore have several versions without any of them competing with each other.

There might be:

the complete journal article for specialists;

a conference presentation for peers;

a policy briefing for policymakers;

a patient resource for people affected by a condition;

a three-minute animation for a wider audience;

a 30-second social media clip introducing the discovery;

and a podcast allowing the researchers to discuss the wider story.

That isn’t unnecessary duplication.

It is recognising that different audiences consume information differently.

Researchers should not have to choose between scholarly publishing and public communication

The question should not be:

“Should we publish the research academically or communicate it publicly?”

The answer to that is obvious.

Publish the research.

The better question comes afterwards.

“Now that the research has been published, who else should understand it?”

Sometimes the answer genuinely may be nobody.

There are highly specialised pieces of research where the important audience is a small group of other specialists.

That’s fine.

But for a huge amount of research, particularly publicly funded work relating to health, society, technology, climate, education, engineering or public policy, there are obvious audiences outside academia.

Those audiences should not need a PhD to understand why the work matters.

What role can research animation and video play?

Some research is particularly difficult to communicate through text alone.

A molecular mechanism.

A new surgical technique.

Changes inside a cell.

Ocean circulation.

An engineering process.

A geological change taking place over thousands of years.

A mathematical or physical concept that is difficult to imagine.

Animation can show things that cannot easily be filmed and can build an explanation visually, step by step.

A research video can also give somebody the basic understanding they need before they decide whether they want to explore the research in more detail.

That is how we see the role of SciTube.

We are not replacing the research paper.

We are creating another route into it.

The academic publication remains the detailed scientific record.

The video helps a different audience understand the story, purpose and significance of the research.

Scholarly publishing and public communication need each other

Scholarly publishing is essential.

Science needs a rigorous way of recording findings, assessing evidence, challenging conclusions and allowing future researchers to build on previous work.

But scholarly publishing was never designed to do every communication job.

A journal article should not also be expected to function as a patient explainer, a school resource, a YouTube video, a policy briefing and a public information campaign.

Likewise, a three-minute animation cannot replace a complete research paper.

Trying to make either format do the other’s job usually makes both worse.

The research paper provides the depth.

Public communication provides another way in.

For research with relevance beyond academia, the strongest communication strategy often needs both.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between scholarly publishing and science communication?

Scholarly publishing primarily records and communicates research for academic and specialist audiences. Science communication explains scientific research, ideas and discoveries to wider audiences. Scholarly publishing normally contains more technical detail and assumes greater prior knowledge, while public science communication provides more context and uses language and formats appropriate for non-specialists.

Is scholarly publishing the same as public engagement?

No. Scholarly publishing is part of the system used to communicate and preserve academic research. Public engagement involves connecting research and society and can include dialogue, participation, collaboration and other forms of interaction with the public.

Is an open-access paper public science communication?

Not necessarily. Open access makes a research paper available without a subscription or paywall, but the paper may still be written for specialists. Public science communication focuses on making the research understandable and relevant to a wider audience.

Why should researchers communicate beyond academic journals?

Research can matter to patients, policymakers, businesses, funders, communities, educators and the wider public as well as other researchers. Communicating beyond journals can help these audiences understand what research has discovered, why it matters and how it may affect them.

Does public communication replace the research paper?

No. Public communication should complement scholarly publication rather than replace it. The research paper provides the detailed scholarly record, while public-facing communication makes selected aspects of that research understandable to different audiences.

What is the difference between research dissemination and research publication?

Research publication creates a formal research output, such as a journal article. Research dissemination is broader and involves getting research findings to the people who could use, understand or benefit from them. Academic publication can therefore be one part of a much wider dissemination strategy.

How can researchers communicate published research to the public?

Researchers can use plain-language articles, animation, video, podcasts, social media, news coverage, patient resources, schools, exhibitions, public events and other formats. The best method depends on the research, the intended audience and what the researcher wants that audience to understand or do.