The Stempra committee has been busy behind the scenes thinking about how to incorporate the results from our membership survey into the planning for our events, newsletter, website, training offers, mentoring and more. Please watch this space for some exciting things in the pipeline, but in the meantime, here is a deeper dive into the main findings from our latest membership survey.
Who are our members?
From the survey, we’ve been able to draw a picture of who makes up our community:
- 51% work in the university/higher education sector, for a charity, or for a patient support group.
- The majority (79%) work full time.
- Over half (56%) are in London and the South East.
- 69% describe their level of responsibility as either Officer, Senior Officer, or Manager, and the most common job role is Communications Manager.
- Almost half (43%) have been a Stempra member for over five years.
- 92% are satisfied with their Stempra membership! Events and training are the most valued aspect (76%), followed by networking and connections (58%) and the mailing list (50%). In the comments, lots of members mentioned mentoring and peer support as key aspects of Stempra’s offer for them.
What do members’ jobs tend to be like?
Same same but different: we’re all working in science communications in some form, but we’re talking about slightly different topics to a range of audiences. Despite some variety, the majority of our members are communicating about health and medicine, and the general public are the most common audience our members work with.
In terms of key skills, members needed writing and editing (93%), strategic communications/planning (80%), content development (75%), media relations (65%), and social media/digital content (64%) in their roles.
What do members want more of?
- Preferred event types were skilled based workshops and training (78%), followed by webinars, virtual sessions and teach-ins (66%).
- 81% preferred to attend a mix of in-person and online events.
- 63% wanted to develop their skills in evaluation and impact measurement, 50% in crisis communications/reputation management and 47% in using AI. Desired skills differed depending on career level, with those in assistant and officer roles hoping to develop core skills in science writing and content creation, whereas those with more experience wanted to boost skills in strategy and impact.
- A third of members are happy with their current level of involvement, but the majority of members would like to get involved in at least one form of engagement, such as mentoring or buddying (33%), joining a working group committee (30%) or contributing content (27%).
What’s next?
Lots of you would like to get more involved, which is fantastic – please drop us a message at info@stempra.org.uk to discuss any opportunities coming up or ideas you have! We’re also working on building the results into Stempra’s offer, such as diversifying events based on career level, revamping the newsletter and prioritising more regional events and meet-ups. Read more here on our response to the survey results.
Thank you to Jane Carn from Pearl Research for her support, and to the survey team: Ed Day (Kings College London), Clare Green (Francis Crick Institute), Fareha Lasker (Arup) and Kerry Noble (Freelance).