A statistical picture of popularization activities and their evolutions in France

This paper provides a detailed statistical picture of French scientists involved in public outreach. This is achieved by analysing the popularization practices of 7000 scientists in all major disciplines over a six-year period (2004 to 2009). I analyse the influence of discipline, position, age and academic productivity. Thanks to a temporal analysis, I show that scientists can be split into three distinct populations with radically different popularization practices. Finally, this analysis suggests that the recent increase in public engagement is the result of heightened social interest which pulls more outreach from particular disciplines.