We use the term ‘scientist-communicator’ to describe practicing scientists who do science communication, either about their own research, or their discipline, or about science as a practice more generally. Science communicators on the other hand can be professionals without a science practice who communicate about science.

The term scientist-communicator was used by Salmon, Priestley and Goven (2017), and it is a small but useful distinction: scientist-communicators might see communication as part of the responsibility and role of being a scientist, or they might feel that it is an add-on that they are doing, perhaps in their own time, because they think it has value. Primarily though, they are scientists first and foremost.