Jade Passey, Press Officer (Episode 46) | Jade is bridging the gap between science and marketing
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah is talking to Jade Passey, Senior Science and Health Press Officer at The Brain Tumour Charity. Jade keeps people affected by brain tumours, supporters, researchers and other partners informed about the latest charity-funded research.
They snooze, you lose
Although Jade was always interested in science, animals were her first passion. She originally wanted to be a vet but didn’t get the grades. Instead, she followed a path into veterinary biosciences and ultimately a PhD in veterinary microbiology studying probiotics for chickens. It was during her PhD that she realised how important it is to connect your audience…when a poultry farmer dozed off during her talk!
“If I couldn’t communicate to the people that needed to hear about it, then I was doing a bad job. And I’d done a bad job because he fell asleep and I don’t blame him, because I presented loads of real nitty gritty data and that’s not what he wanted – he wanted to know how it would help him. And from that point onwards, I realised that communications was so important.”
Learning on the job
It was Jade’s PhD supervisor who encouraged her to step into a communications role. Seeing her potential, he asked her to partner with a colleague to develop a communications strategy for a large European research project. It was a steep learning curve.
“Pretty much everything that I did, I taught myself or learned from making mistakes and not doing a great job of pitching things right for the right audiences and that kind of thing. I think what a PhD gives you is that mentality of I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m going to be able to work this out.”
With solid experience under her belt Jade then moved to a role at the Pirbright Institute where she had the opportunity to create a game for the Royal Society Summer Exhibition (pictured). Although it was voted one of the best exhibits the experience made Jade realise that she prefers to be behind the scenes.
“We were completely buzzing because we created this wonderful thing. But I think it made me realize it was too much for me to be at the forefront. When you’re a press officer, you’re sort of behind the scenes. You are connecting people with journalists, but nobody actually ever sees what you do. It just kind of happens. I’m definitely a more introverted behind the scenes kind of person.”
This desire to be more behind the scenes and to do something which makes a difference led Jade into the charity sector and the role she is in now.
Balancing science and story
Research communications is taken seriously in the charity sector. It’s essential to keep supporters well informed so that they feel their money is being well spent, and to convince them to keep fundraising.
“A lot of people want to raise money for research. They want cures to all of these diseases that have affected themselves or their loved ones. And I think we have to make sure that we’re communicating that research to those people, not only so that they feel that we’re doing a good job, but so that they feel comfortable to carry on donating if they think the cause is worthy enough.”
As Jade explains the skill real skill of her work is finding ways to connect to the human story in the science, using a just the right mix of information and persuasion. Walking this path can lead to challenging conversations with researchers, but Jade has a clear audience and objective in mind.
“I sort of straddle a marketing team and a research team and obviously then you’ve got people with marketing minds which I dabble in and then you’ve got the people with the research and science minds which I also dabble in but bringing but being the bridge between those things is really tricky.”
“People say ‘I can’t dumb this down’ and it’s like ‘no you’re not speaking to people that are dumb’. You’re just speaking to people who don’t understand science the way you do and that is most of the population.”
Finding friends
Although Jade loves her work, like many research adjacent folks she doesn’t work directly with many others who really understand what she does.
“So it can be quite, it can be quite a lonely thing because, within a comms team, there’s normally just one person that can do that function, that science comms function. So you don’t have other people to bounce ideas off of.”
Jade has found strength and support from like-minded people particularly via STEMPRA, a network for science press officers. And she would love there to be more roles like hers out there, opting to use her Research Adjacent magic wand to improve science communication for all charities to help them continue their valuable work.
Find out more
- Connect with Jade on Twitter or LinkedIn
- Find out about The Brain Tumour Charity
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay