You should take a gamble every now and then, says Martijn Peters. He started a PhD in the polymer group at the University of Hasselt, but soon realised that academia was not for him. He was, however, good at talking about what he’d researched. In 2014, he won the Science Slam U-Hasselt, a competition where participants had to pour their research into a comedy skit. ‘That’s when I got into the habit,’ Peters says. ‘After that, I started doing more and more science communication.’

Peters liked communication and had a knack for it. During his PhD studies at Hasselt University, he attended as many workshops as possible in order to specialise further. Armed with this knowledge and an overdose of enthusiasm, he threw himself into one project after another. He made vlogs about his life as a PhD student, designed the website for his research group and organised a TedX conference at the university.

Odd man

In the final year of his PhD, Peters decided that his extracurricular activities could become a job. ’That’s when I went the extra mile. He was an odd man out in his research group. ’Few scientists do anything with communication, they don’t find it interesting. I put a lot of my spare time into it, but it was still a bit of a gamble. I didn’t know if it was going to be a long-term thing.

After completing his PhD, Peters worked as a science communicator at the university. This involved organising conferences and working on projects. But he didn’t sit still after work. He specialised in social media and built up a successful account on Instagram, which was an emerging medium at the time. ‘I was talking about science communication in English, so I got a lot of international followers.’

’I’d become so involved in communicating science that people were more likely to come to me.’

Arsenal of awards

Soon the local newspapers, radio and television knew how to find Peters. ‘The whole process is an accumulation of following my passion and being committed to it, but also serendipity and being the right person in the right place. I had done so much with science communication that people were more likely to come to me.’ His arsenal of awards is impressive. He has won The Floor is Yours’ Science Battle, the KVAB’s annual science communication prize twice, and a so-called Jamie Award for his science videos on TikTok.

Peters’ gamble paid off. In 2019, he left the university to take up the position of science coordinator at DPG Media. The days are busy, but Peters enjoys it. ‘At the university I would report on my own research or that of my colleagues, now I do science stories on all sorts of topics. I get bored quickly when I have to do the same thing over and over again, but now I can focus on something different each time.’