Having been a national team member myself, I know what you are talking about. You are an expert in communication. Researchers have a huge need to communicate with the public.
Some have it; some don't.
You are from Quebec City. Professor Fernand Labrie has the opportunity and skill to communicate with the public. We know that his work on prostate cancer has had problems and breakthroughs. Still, not all researchers have his ability to communicate with the public. So the priority is to communicate through newspapers, through the press and through television. They are not all Wayne Gretzky. So those who fund the research also have the responsibility to communicate with the public about the research and say what is going well and what is not. We have done that at Genome Canada. Our target audience is from 12 to 18 years old. They are going to be deciding whether they will have a career in science or not. We want to tell them about the career possibilities.
When the taxpayer shows up at the hospital with his child, he has no idea about all that. The child has a fever and the mother is in tears because the child could die. In 45 minutes, we know that the infection is viral. We give him aspirin, send him home, and it is gone in two days. If the infection was bacterial, he could die. That technology was just developed by a researcher in Canada.