Innovations in Science is a public-facing storytelling and community engagement platform designed to make science more visible, understandable, and locally relevant and developed from a collaboration between local newspapers and scientists.

Through print and digital publishing, scientist profiles, discovery spotlights, multimedia storytelling, and community-centered features, this program will expand access to the latest scientific advances and give people a chance to understand:

• Who is doing the research.
• What is being discovered or developed.
• Why it matters.
• How it connects to their community and everyday life.

Innovations in Science builds on the ethos and success of the McClintock Letters initiative organized by the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy (SNAP) and co-founded by Innovations co-founder Emma Scales. The McClintock Letters demonstrated how trusted local media can reconnect communities with the researchers and discoveries shaping their future. 

Innovations in Science expands this model into an ongoing public-facing platform for accessible science storytelling and community engagement. 

In 2025, the McClintock Letters enabled hundreds of scientists to write to their hometown newspapers across more than 45 states about their journeys in science and why their research matters. Today, we are preparing to take this idea further with Innovations in Science. 

Beginning in Ithaca, NY, and a partnership between the scientists who developed the McClintock Letters and independent local newspapers, we aim to foster a nationwide ecosystem of robust local science journalism. 

We are developing ties with research institutions and working directly with researchers. This is not about watering science down.

It is about translating complex ideas into trusted, engaging stories that invite more people into the conversation.