Making sense of it all at the heart of Imperial's pandemic response
#CelebratingEngagement
with Sabine van Elsland
“You can put your research out there, but if it doesn’t reach people in the right way then it’s useless.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Sabine van Elsland stood at the meeting point between Imperial’s epidemiological models and a world seeking clarity. As External Relationships and Communications Manager in the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, she led a team that handled over 2,000 media inquiries from 47 different countries within the first year, serving as the central contact between Imperial and the media on this subject. Her exceptional efforts were recognized at the 2024 President's Awards for Excellence in Societal Engagement, where she received the Leadership Award.
Sabine’s work during the pandemic is a continuation of her quest to demystify complexity and bridge the gap between science and the public. Her journey to becoming a champion of accessible science can be traced back to long before the pandemic, before her academic career even began. Aged 17, she embarked on a trip through South Africa and South America, which opened her eyes to global healthcare disparities, and inspired her to do something about it. A path was then laid out, and she went on to achieve a degree in Health Sciences, specialising in infectious disease epidemiology, and took on internships with healthcare projects across the world.
Her initial travels inspired her, the internships shaped her expertise, but it was a six-month cross-continent adventure from Cape Town to Amsterdam that truly cemented her passion. Along the way, Sabine immersed herself in local communities, visiting health initiatives and speaking with people about their lived experiences.
"I wanted to do something that could contribute to better services and better healthcare for people.”
"From seeing how people live and what their needs are, and speaking to locals, that's where the engagement started," she reflects.
Hands-on work with people and patients is the common thread in Sabine’s work. "Even though I'm not a medical doctor, my work has almost always been in hospitals with patients” she explains, citing a career that includes a PhD evaluating healthcare programmes for children, and a stint at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy integrating healthcare with faith-based institutions across Southern Africa. It is this human connection which has informed her approach to science communication and public engagement.
When COVID-19 began to spread in early 2020, Sabine’s combination of infectious disease expertise and deep experience with people-centred communication proved invaluable. In a climate of misinformation and scepticism, her challenge was to distil complex research findings into information that people could access, understand and trust. "If the pandemic has taught me one thing, it's that we all speak a different language," she says. "How we might speak day-to-day with our colleagues could mean something completely different even to someone who works in the same field as you.”
The results were impressive. Sabine’s team maintained clear and consistent messaging across public media outputs which included journal articles, media interviews, public briefings and news stories. But her contributions extended well beyond public communications. She also co-authored science reports that informed policy and displayed data that was accessible to global health decisionmakers. Her efforts to ensure Imperial research was translated into seven different languages ensured information was accessible in countries often overlooked by the global health community. One review found that two-thirds of the outputs from her team were referenced in at least one policy document in governments worldwide, a testament to the global relevance and reach of their work.
Whilst ambitious, Sabine showed a realistic understanding of the misinformation climate and a pragmatic approach to communication. “If someone feels as strongly about being opposed to vaccination as I feel about the worth of vaccines, you can’t really change each other’s minds”, she says. “It’s more about the people who are in the middle or swaying.”
“It was really important to make the right information available to allow people to make a well-informed decision and counter the misinformation that was being spread.”
When COVID-19 began to spread in early 2020, Sabine’s combination of infectious disease expertise and deep experience with people-centred communication proved invaluable. In a climate of misinformation and scepticism, her challenge was to distil complex research findings into information that people could access, understand and trust. "If the pandemic has taught me one thing, it's that we all speak a different language," she says. "How we might speak day-to-day with our colleagues could mean something completely different even to someone who works in the same field as you.”
The results were impressive. Sabine’s team maintained clear and consistent messaging across public media outputs which included journal articles, media interviews, public briefings and news stories. But her contributions extended well beyond public communications. She also co-authored science reports that informed policy and displayed data that was accessible to global health decisionmakers. Her efforts to ensure Imperial research was translated into seven different languages ensured information was accessible in countries often overlooked by the global health community. One review found that two-thirds of the outputs from her team were referenced in at least one policy document in governments worldwide, a testament to the global relevance and reach of their work.
Whilst ambitious, Sabine showed a realistic understanding of the misinformation climate and a pragmatic approach to communication. “If someone feels as strongly about being opposed to vaccination as I feel about the worth of vaccines, you can’t really change each other’s minds”, she says. “It’s more about the people who are in the middle or swaying.”
“It was really important to make the right information available to allow people to make a well-informed decision and counter the misinformation that was being spread.”
Engagement remains an intrinsic part of Sabine’s work, serving as an avenue for her to unleash her creativity. Her impressive engagement portfolio includes a video podcast series, ‘Top Trumps’-style cards explaining pathogens, and her support of colleagues participating in I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here, a programme which she also adapts and organises in schools. She’s even in the process of putting her artistic hand to designing a board game – creating the cards and tiles herself.
For Sabine, public engagement and involvement shouldn't just be a box to tick but woven into the fabric of scientific research. “[Public engagement] costs scientists time and money, but it’s not a metric you’re held accountable for to progress your career”, she explains. She has recently established an MRC community partner steering group and is creating guidance on planning research activities which include community engagement, both of which are helping to normalise engagement as embedded practice at Imperial. She has also implemented a system where team members receive official certificates for meeting criteria on attending training and volunteering at public engagement activities.
Her advice for engaging people with research reflects her straightforward philosophy. “It’s not rocket science. Find your common ground. What is your audience interested in? Where do you share interests? Take that as your starting point”. She makes it sound so simple.
Her work reminds us that science isn’t just for scientists – it's for everyone. And that when science is shared, understood and trusted, its power to improve lives is amplified.
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