Science Communication, Policy & Activism: Advice from JP Flores

In April 2017, during the first Trump administration, thousands of scientists and science advocates gathered in Washington D.C. and cities across the world for the March For Science to protest policies that proposed, among other things, dramatic reductions in funding for scientific research.

Nearly eight years later and faced with even more urgent threats to scientific research, scientists again organized a local movement that quickly became global. On March 7, 2025, scientists and their supporters went out into the streets for the Stand Up For Science 2025 rally to protest Trump administration policies aimed at defunding and disintegrating scientific research in the United States. Stand Up For Science had capacity to support rallies at 32 sites across the U.S., but “it ended up being a lot more than 32,” said JP Flores, our most recent guest on Big Biology. “It ended up going global. People in France were also in on it.”

Flores is a Ph.D candidate in bioinformatics and computational biology at the University of North Carolina and was one of the organizers of the Stand Up For Science rally. His involvement was a response to the feeling that something had to be done to combat government attacks on science. “I just felt hopeless for the first time in my life. And as I was looking for answers…I thought about the March For Science. And I don't know why this idea got planted in my head, but I was like, why don't we just do that again?”

The rally on March 7 has become a launching point for a larger movement that is taking shape and that aims to highlight the importance of science to the local communities it seeks to serve. “It's not, oh, we're in the ivory tower, and we need to tell everyone to support us. I don't think that's how this should work,” Flores says. “It is—How do you get scientists into communities and have them talk to everyone such that the community takes them in and actually cares and supports them? That's what we're trying to do.”

Below is a description of the various science advocacy groups and ways you can get involved, regardless of your experience with science or advocacy.

Science For Good

Science For Good is a non-profit organization co-founded by Flores and other SUFS team members that is a partnership-focused initiative bringing scientists out of