Differences in research dissemination practices between scientific fields: an empirical study of the CSIC

A range of governmental and institutional scientific policies have emerged in recent decades to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge throughout society. This article explores the involvement of researchers in various types of dissemination and identifies practices and differences among scientific fields. The study analyses a large sample of researchers from eight scientific fields of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), who were surveyed about their participation in diverse dissemination activities. Two indicators related to individual and institutional dissemination activities were constructed from a factor analysis. The ANOVA test indicates different dissemination patterns between researchers in social sciences and humanities and those from experimental science fields, though the difference is not very marked. These results may be of interest for the future focus of actions to promote scientific dissemination.