It is high time to consider establishment of science communication programmes within universities and academic institutions under the combined aegis of both the faculties of Science & Technology and of Humanities & Communication. The focus must be on emerging areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mass Communication with an emphasis on both social advancement and knowledge creation. The idea is to arrive at a homogeneous fusion of industrially directed research and development capabilities with effective journalistic and communication capabilities for universally accepted paradigms of social engineering leading to rational, knowledge based decision making at political, planning and policy as well as society levels. Science-media-society interfacing and organisational impacts are key aspects of capacity building in science communication. As the ‘information age’ rapidly progresses and if we want to direct it towards ‘knowledge age’, we need to develop and support appropriate synergistic and imaginative combinations of academic disciplines. The first or second generations of science communicators might have advanced their capabilities through informal academics and training in science communication, the coming generations must be appropriately trained to cope-up with the present and future challenges with courage, self-confidence and proper direction.

Science, technology, information and communication are becoming more and more interwoven into many and diverse areas of society as we move towards the new millennium. The world has seen a shift from a purely manufacturing society to one in which equal emphasis is given on information, its processing, dissemination and interpretation. It necessitates an integrated approach with comprehensive multidisciplinary skills and capabilities embedded in scientific temper for proper interpretation and problem solving. Since, there exist considerable overlaps in these disciplines, it is believed that the innovative planning and execution hold much promise for improving the quality, flexibility and effectiveness of higher education and research in science communication. The potential benefits will extend to the process of learning, teaching, research and practice. The creation of the new infrastructure will not be an easy task, given the historical background and limited resource, it however, seems to be the only option, which can serve the purpose of science communication academics in most desired sense. If so, revamp syllabi, redesign courses, give sciences their due weightage, free from conventional biases having good faith in pragmatism and new realities and roll out communicators who are scientists at heart, because if science communication can proliferate scientific temper the converse should also hold true.