Research at the centre deals with many concepts, like resilience, regime shifts, and adaptive governance, that tend to be rather complicated to communicate to non-technical audiences, including government, funding agencies and the public. As a part of the Centre's on-going efforts to communicate scientific findings in new and creative ways an educational collaboration with Berghs School of Communication was tested earlier this year.

From dull texts to stunning art
Berghs School of Communication is a leading institution in advertising and marketing education in Stockholm. The collaboration with the Centre was initiated through Pål Pettersson, Course director at Berghs' department of graphic design. The course itself was curated by Joe Coppard, Creative Director of Protothon, and centre researcher Victor Galaz together with a group of colleagues.

"As scientists, we are used to communicating through long pieces of dull text, and some occasional tables and figures. This joint project allowed us all to work more creatively, and sometimes with quite complex scientific concepts. The end result: stunning pieces of art with a deeper message," Victor Galaz explains.

The resulting projects include a video presentation of Changing Planet, the new cluster on global change research consisting of researchers from the centre, the Beijer Institute, the Planetary Boundaries Research Network and the Family Erling Persson Program - Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere.

Compelling stories and engaging visuals
Other projects include: a video showing how climate change is likely to create severe threats but also opportunities to human health; an interactive visualisation of how coral reefs can move between multiple states; and a commercial for the centre that also raises awareness of the concept of resilience.

Another group of students from Berghs produced a movie "targeting children, young adults and adults that don't get in contact with science everyday". It was made using stop motion technique, and paper, to explain what resilience is.

"Overall, we were deeply impressed by what the students came up with in such a short time span, and I definitely believe that all scientific institutions have a lot to learn from advertising schools when it comes to telling compelling stories and using engaging and memorable visuals," says Fredrik Moberg, acting communications director of the centre, and also involved in the collaboration with Berghs.

Watch the video presentations below: