Exploring the Drivers and Barriers for Writing Lay Summary

Writing the lay summary is one of the methods for the popularization of science and has been developed for more than two decades for making the general public aware of the results of academic inquiries and scientific research. However, the number of these summaries is not yet large, and it is not yet clear why researchers are reluctant to write these summaries and what drives could encourage them in writing these summaries. Therefore, this research seeks to identify the key drivers and barriers for writing lay summaries.

The research questions are addressed through a systematic review method. After retrieving nearly 2900 records from Iranian and global databases (such as SID, Ganj, Magiran, Web of Science, Scopus, etc.), 56 studies were identified and analyzed in order to extract the main drivers and barriers. All full-texts of selected publications were studied and drivers and barriers for writing lay summaries were identified.

The findings showed that 19 drivers and 17 barriers have an important role in writing lay summaries. The key drivers are moral duty, increasing reputation, employers’ request, practical application of the findings, increasing public awareness, institutional support, government support, receiving an award, attracting participation, getting feedback, competing with colleagues, attracting financial resources, increasing social security, increasing social development, making a change, requests from the general public, increasing research partners and building a scientific network, increase the quality of research, and recruiting students. Furthermore, the barriers include researchers’ living in their own world, fear of misunderstanding, fear of misuse of scientific findings, degradation of science, the inefficiency of promotion tools, familiarity with the concept and method of writing lay summaries, lack of time, low readership, unattractive research, lack of required technical infrastructure, lack of sufficient reward, the uncertainty of scientific findings, probability of negative consequences, negative reputation among colleagues, lack of culture to science popularization, and lack of space for publication. "Increasing public awareness" is the key driver for researchers to write lay summaries, and "lack of time" is the most frequent barrier that can be mentioned in this regard.

Some drivers and barriers are related to the research itself and others to the researcher, institutions, and society. Probably, the results of this study can help higher education policymakers and funders of research to design solutions to encourage the writing of lay summaries in order to help the general public to take advantage of research findings and scientific results.