Every year, I send out a tweet asking UK sci-commers what they’re doing to mark Black History Month (BHM), and every year, I get the same lack of response which tells me that no-one is doing anything. This year, I don’t want to just send out my usual tweet because I suspect all it really accomplishes is to make a few more people in sci-comm dislike me.

So, for the past few months I have been talking to lots of important, influential people who I think could make things happen to help the UK science communication community do things to mark BHM. The only problem is that a lot of these people are white and, understandably, many of them feel uncomfortable taking the lead on this. As do I. I am not “black” in the modern usage of the word (once upon a time, Asian people could also identify as “black”, but that’s another conversation).

So, I have got access to a central London venue, I have got a bunch of prominent scientists and science communicators who are willing to help. There are lovely people like my friend Sophia Collins who are also trying to help by offering to lend support for grant applications, and I am sure there are a whole bunch of other people who could help raise money if that’s what is needed. What I need now are a bunch of black and other PoC science communicators to help organise some stuff to make this Black History Month different for UK sci-comms.

If you’re interested, email me and I will then organise an initial meeting.