Introduction
In a context where science communication is increasingly scrutinised for conflicts of interest, industry actors are facing a particular challenge: how to share rigorous, evidence-based findings while maintaining credibility and fostering real engagement with the scientific community. This tension is particularly acute in animal nutrition and aquaculture, where commercial stakes are high and the line between scientific communication and marketing can appear blurred. However, industry generates a significant volume of applied research that, if communicated responsibly, can make a genuine contribution to the collective knowledge base. This perspective abstract draws on our experience as an insect ingredient company to reflect on the formats, principles and pitfalls of industry science communication.
A growing toolkit for industry-led science
Industry has progressively developed a range of approaches to generate credible, communicable evidence. Collaborative PhD programmes allow companies to engage with academic institutions on questions that require expertise, equipment, infrastructures or methodological experience beyond internal capacity. These partnerships are mutually beneficial: industry gains access to independent scientific validation, while academic teams engage with real-world research questions and datasets. Research consortia represent a further step, bringing together actors from across the value chain under the scientific oversight of dedicated research institutions. Projects of this kind, where feed manufacturers, producers, ingredient suppliers and scientists work on shared challenges with agreed methodologies, offer a model for generating evidence that is both industrially relevant and scientifically robust. For more targeted questions, partnerships with contract research organisations (CROs) provide controlled, reproducible trial conditions to generate new results and build product-specific claims.
The credibility challenge: trust, bias and transparency
Each collaboration format carries its own credibility profile and its own risks. Funding source, study design, choice of comparators, and the selective reporting of favourable results are all legitimate concerns that the scientific community raises when evaluating industry-generated evidence. These concerns are not unfounded, and industry communicators must engage with them directly rather than defensively. In practice, this means being transparent about methodologies used, trial conditions and their limitations, and clearly distinguishing between findings that are statistically robust and those that are preliminary or observational.
As white papers have emerged as a valuable communication format, enabling companies to share structured, evidence-based content with professional and scientific audiences outside the traditional peer-reviewed publication route, we must also make sure to comply with the above guidelines.
Conferences such as this one play a central role in connecting actors, providing a space where industry and academic scientists can exchange on equal footing.
Submitting work to peer review, even when the timeline is challenging, remains the gold standard. Where that is not possible, applying the same standards of transparency and rigour to other formats is both achievable and necessary.
Reaching beyond the scientific community
Engaging peer scientists is only part of the communication challenge. Industry actors are also well positioned to act as translators of science, bringing evidence-based knowledge to broader audiences including farmers, feed manufacturers, policymakers and the general public. This requires a different set of skills and formats than those used in academic communication, and one that industry, with its commercial communication experience, can genuinely contribute to.
Social media and short-form video have opened new channels for science communication that the aquaculture and animal nutrition sectors are only beginning to explore. A well-crafted post explaining a key result, or a short video clip from a trial site or processing facility,or even an impactful infographic or simplified visual can reach audiences that a conference presentation or peer-reviewed journal article never will. These formats should come with clarity, visual storytelling and a personal voice, all of which sit more naturally with industry communicators than with many academic researchers. Used responsibly, they can build genuine public engagement.
Conclusion
Industry has a legitimate and important role to play in science communication, provided it is exercised with honesty and methodological discipline. Today's range of formats, from peer-reviewed publications and white papers to social media, creates real opportunities to contribute meaningfully to scientific debate and make results more widely accessible.
The credibility of these contributions depends not on the absence of commercial interest, which is neither realistic nor required, but on the transparency with which that interest is declared and the rigour with which the science is conducted and reported. Building that trustworthy science-backed communication is a long-term investment, but one that benefits the entire field.
Industry is not a passive beneficiary of scientific progress. It is increasingly an active participant in generating, communicating and contextualising it. Embracing this role across all available channels, from academic journals to digital platforms, is both an opportunity and a responsibility.