Speaker
Description
How do we sustain public interest in physics when major discoveries may be decades apart?
Ten years after the Higgs boson captured global attention, research at the Large Hadron Collider and other infrastructures continues with dedication and precision but often outside the spotlight. This talk explores strategies for communicating long-term science in ways that remain meaningful and engaging, even without headline breakthroughs.
Drawing on outreach work from the LHC-ErUM-FSP Office, we examine approaches that shift focus from single events to the people, process, and persistence that drive discovery. By highlighting ongoing progress, collaboration, and the human stories behind the data, communicators can help audiences appreciate science as a living, evolving practice rather than a series of isolated results.
The talk reflects on lessons learned from social media, storytelling, and cross-sector engagement, and considers what “impact” means when success is measured in understanding and networking rather than clicks or news coverage. In line with the PAERI’26 theme From Metrics to Meaning, this talk invites a rethinking of how we tell the story of physics and why that story still matters outside of big discoveries.
