Storytelling for scientists: fresh perspectives for your narrative workshop

Use narrative techniques to talk about your research in a new way

Why do we pay money to go see a movie, while we have to get paid to read journals? Because movies are stories, and stories captivate us! In fact, narratives are a great way for humans to receive and remember information.

Use storytelling to make your science come to life!

In this workshop, you will learn what makes a good story, and start writing your own. We’ll cover topics like perspective, narrator, characters, plots and story arcs, and illustrate the various options with examples. Then you’ll get to practice them to find out what works in which situation.

English or Dutch

Online or in-house

Suitable for all researchers, from PhD student to Full Professor. No previous experience is needed.
We can tailor each workshop to fit your needs, offering different formats and lengths to suit your schedule.

What you will learn

What are stories, and (how) do they differ from the scientific narrative?
Elements of a good story: characters, plot and twists
Keeping your audience engaged: add tension and sensory writing
How can you use stories to explain your research?
Can you apply AI like ChatGPT to this?

A workshop by
Stephan van Duin, MSc

Stephan built a diverse portfolio in science communication over the years. After starting as a science journalist, he wrote books, appeared in the media, created TV-shows and museum exhibitions and brought science to festivals and the media. His experience as science press officer also means he knows the academic environment.

All this combines into an improvisation skill that will help anyone in one of his workshops – it’s hard to find a better sparring partner for science communication than Stephan.

Thank you, Stephan! I particularly liked how you prompted us to approach our pitch from multiple perspectives.

Thanks for the tips for the pitch and storytelling. These are quite useful.

Liesbeth and Stephan inspired me to think better about the communication of my research. I thought it was especially cool to learn how to convey a message in such a way that you can attract attention even with the most complex topics. In the future I will package all my messages in a more creative format."

David Oerlemans, student at HAS

This workshop is flexible!

Do you like this workshop, but are you looking for something slightly different? No problem! We offer our workshops in various configurations from inspiring keynote, to interactive sessions and immersive multi-day courses.

We can also combine some workshops to create a full-day program, or fit a narrower time slot by giving a lecture highlighting the most important insights.

Fill out the quote form below to tell us the time you have, the amount of participants and the level of interactivity so we can find a solution.

Science-communication-lecture-Liesbeth-Smit

One hour to multiple day sessions
Small groups up to 12 participants or large audiences
More or less interaction
For all levels: from PhD students to full professors and from support staff to full-on communicators.

All our science communication workshops

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