Science has immense importance in problem solving, decision making and innovation, but it can often be jargon heavy and inaccessible for the public when limited to research papers and journals. To make it more accessible one can use science communication to inform, educate and raise awareness on science-related topics, especially so when it comes to conservation science. Our workshop will help young researchers look at art and design as tools for communication. Art-based science communication can encourage intuitive thinking, evoke emotional responses, and engage the imagination in ways that prompt behavioural change and action. Similarly, a good design can simplify complex ideas and make them clear and easier for people to understand. Furthermore, an integral part of art-based communication involves collaboration between artists/designers and scientists, which enables for a better transfer of knowledge amongst different groups of people.

Increasingly, scientists and researchers are taking to social media to disseminate their findings. Thus, through our workshop, we will introduce the participants to drawing, illustrations, graphic design and content creation for social media (especially Instagram), which includes elements like observation, storytelling and metaphor-making to help their research reach a larger audience. We will also give an introduction to making quick posters/posts keeping in mind basic design principles and using freely available tools like Canva.

By the end of the workshop participants will be able to understand the role that art and design can play in science communication. They will gain an understanding of how to simplify complex ideas using drawings and illustrations and how to collaborate with artists / designers to produce these. They will also learn how to create social media posts and posters themselves on Canva to better disseminate their research.

"The past decade has witnessed a tremendous growth in the use of open source software to address almost every computing requirement. Not only have the open source software opened up avenues for students to access cutting-edge technology, they have also put forth huge volumes of reference material and guiding information on the internet. The workshop 'How R you doing?' will demonstrate the advanced statistical and graphical capabilities of the open source R platform.

This workshop will familiarize participants with some basic features of R and guide them how to open files, manage data and carry out simple statistical analyses with R. Most importantly, the workshop hopes to aid students to get through the steep initial learning curve for R and familiarize them with carrying out routine statistical analyses with R. Once they become comfortable with the R computing environment they would be better prepared to independently explore R further and use it for advanced analyses relevant to their specific requirements.

Through this workshop students will become comfortable with the R computing environment and basic operating procedures. This will make them better prepared to independently explore R further and use it for advanced analyses relevant to their specific requirements.

This workshop is intended for students who are familiar with basic statistics and want to carry out analysis on ecological data. It will be useful for students who have not yet had a chance to use R to analyse ecological data. The workshop will also benefit those who have tried using it but found it overwhelmingly difficult to get started.

• Participants need to use their laptops as this will be a hands-on workshop.
• Participants should install the following (and in sequence):
• R [base package] from http://cran.r-project.org
• Rstudio from http://www.rstudio.com/

Yateendra Joshi

Facing a live audience to present your ideas and the results of your experiments or field studies is a skill that is seldom taught to researchers but needs to be. From defending a doctoral thesis to presenting a project proposal, today’s research increasingly depends on presentations at meetings and conferences as a means of communication. The workshop offers proven techniques to get technical information across to a live audience, and answers these and similar questions.

• Is there a formula to calculate the right font size?
• How do I know whether I am speaking too fast or too slowly?
• How long should I hold each slide of text for the audience to read it?

Information essential to ensure legibility of slides, best practices in presenting, links to useful websites and recommendations for further reading, practice in delivering presentations and constructive feedback on presentations

Do you want to pitch an idea for a popular article to a newspaper editor? Do you write in more than one Indian language? What themes do editors in mainstream media like? How do you find their contact and approach them? Your pitch is accepted. How do you write the perfect popular article, a column in a newspaper? Jignasa Patel and Rupsy Khurana of the Nature Communications (linktr.ee/natcomms) team at NCF have pitched and published more than 190 nature articles written by writers all across India in two years. That’s almost 8 articles a month in English, Hindi, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Gujarati! Learn about the challenges, dos and don’ts, ideas to pitch popular articles and the craft of storytelling. Mayank Aggarwal is an independent journalist with over 17 years of experience. He is also a member of The Reporters’ Collective and a podcast host. He has been writing on environmental issues including energy, renewable power, water, forests, indigenous communities, environmental law and politics, etc. since 2010. He writes on the intersection of environment, politics, business, diplomacy and technology. He aims to build a strong independent journalist community.

Pen and paper or a device to take notes on.

Researchers in biodiversity conservation and ecological sciences need to raise money throughout their career from national and international organizations for conducting their research. The field of ecology and conservation sciences is constantly evolving and has become highly inter and trans-disciplinary in nature during the last few years. Although, academic achievements, research experience, publications and strength of the proposal are the most important criteria for selection but supplementary documents do provide strong support for the application. As formal course on fellowship or grant writing is still not very common at academic/research institutes across India, hence this workshop will provide a holistic idea about fellowship and grant process.

Aim of this workshop is to familiarize students with the expectations of decision makers of grant and fellowship providing agencies. We would discuss about the common mistakes committed by the students while applying for fellowship or grants and finally code of conduct that should be followed throughout the entire process of fellowship and grant writing.

Through this workshop we would discuss simple yet often less discussed issues related to securing grant and fellowships such as finding a supervisor/ collaborator, making first contact with potential supervisor/s, dos and don’ts of communication with the potential supervisor or funding agency, structure and presentation of CV & cover letter, crafting statement of purpose and preparing for online interview etc. An important segment of this workshop would be crafting of research proposal where we would discuss the nitty-gritty of various sections of concise as well as detailed proposal.

This workshop will have two main sections applying for (i) fellowship and (ii) grant. The fellowship section will be straight forward step by step over view of the process and attendee will get opportunities of interaction with resource person after covering each step.

Apart from providing overview of the grant application process, the resource person will provide short practice exercise or group discussion related to each section of the grant application process during the workshop.

None

An introduction to the recording and analysis of sound, produced by biological organisms, or affecting them. We will cover both active and passive acoustic recordings, as well as examples of their applications. Emphasis will be placed also on standard methods to analyze acoustic data, as well as common pitfalls and examples of good practice to use when recording. Finally, discussions will include examples of how this field has contributed to the field of conservation. We will have two sections where we introduce certain concepts and techniques in bioacoustics through interactive, attendee-driven games. We will also lead interactive discussions on particular topics relating to the use of acoustics in conservation.

The workshop aims to inform participants both about the nature of biological sound, provide an overview and basic training of the tools and techniques used to record and analyze biological sound, and illustrate the critical role bioacoustics plays in a variety of conservation studies. Students of ecology studying taxa as diverse as marine mammals, birds, bats, frogs and insects will gain much by attending this workshop, which will illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of bioacoustics as a field. The power of the tools and techniques involved is that they unite engineers, neuroscientists, behavioral ecologists and conservation biologists. This interdisciplinary synthesis has the potential to greatly advance our understanding of natural history and conservation policy, particularly for poorly known and often-elusive species.

"To conduct meaningful and relevant conservation science research, such as sustainable use of bioresources and NTFPs, monitoring harvest of wild meat and edible plants, land use change, climate change and forest management, engagement with the human dimensions of nature is essential. Yet, most conservation science and related courses focus largely on natural sciences (biology, ecology, environmental engineering) and lack adequate engagement with social science-based methods (qualitative and quantitative) to rigorously engage with useful conservation research questions. This workshop thus has been specifically designed to introduce conservation science students and practitioners to the latest social science tools and methods relevant to conservation research. "