Upstream is a joint research and storytelling initiative from Fieldcraft Studios and Braidr — breaking antimicrobial resistance out of its scientific echo chamber and into the real world, where it’s already moving through our rivers and seas.
Work that works, for the world
If we’re not on the water we’re dreaming about when we will be.
Fieldcraft Studios is not just a collective of journalists, creatives, data-scientists, dreamers and doers – we’re also paddlers, sea kayakers and wild swimmers.
We’ve been closely following the scandalous story of how our rivers and seas are being knowingly polluted by raw sewage – because like many in our paddling community, we see it literally floating past.
But as we dug deeper, we found something hiding underneath the sewage story. Something that didn’t make the headlines.
Anti-microbial resistance or AMR.
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria that cause infections have learned to resist the antibiotics designed to treat us. Already present in UK waterways, it enters through sewage discharge, agricultural runoff, hospital waste and pharmaceutical pollution, and has the potential to make common infections harder – or impossible – to treat.
AMR is killing more people globally than malaria and HIV together. It is the silent crisis in our water. And yet the public is barely aware of it.
The challenge
Scientists, governments, universities and companies have been working on antimicrobial resistance for years. There is a deep and credible body of research.
But by the scientific communities own admission – the story still hasn’t landed with the public.
“Previous risk communication about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been unsuccessful in raising sufficient public awareness,” said Eva Krockrow (University of Leicester), in a peer-reviewed paper on AMR communication, October 2024.
Every communications professional who has ever watched world-class science die quietly in a press release will know exactly what we’re talking about.
Experts are just talking to each other.
Because like many complex issues – AMR messaging lives inside expert networks. It speaks the language of specialists to people who already agree. And when it does escape into the mainstream, it wraps itself in apocalyptic language – superbugs, silent pandemics, civilisation-ending resistance – that triggers panic rather than action.
You cannot frighten people into caring about something they’ve never heard of. You have to make them feel it first.
The missing piece isn’t scientific capability. It’s public communication at scale.
This is where we come in.
Our Approach
It’s a problem we see everyday whilst working with brilliant clients from organisations that are shaping our future.
They face increasingly difficult communications challenges. Critical insight gaps. Crowded issue spaces. And audiences that are harder to reach.
We help clients by deploying our expertise at the intersection of journalism, data science and content production to break them out of their echo chambers, connect with new audiences and land their ideas meaningfully across cultures and contexts.
We believe that authentic, human storytelling has the power to shape the world. And we know that our planet’s most pressing challenges don’t come with an enterprise budget.
So we write our own briefs and initiate our own projects on issues that matter at the intersection of science, nature and humanity.
We get to push our thinking, our craft and our methods further. And we test, experiment and find new ways to reach audiences and take complex ideas and issues into unexpected places. Changing behaviours, hearts and minds as we go.
It’s work that has changed the law and raised millions for cancer treatment and been described by the Financial Times as “the best … campaign in web history,”.
Using AI for good
So a few months ago we called our friends at Braidr – our world-class data-science partners who are very good at finding out what people actually think. And we wrote ourselves a brief: To understand what messaging, language and content will break antimicrobial resistance out of its scientific echo chamber and into the real world, where it’s already moving through our rivers and seas.
Working with Braidr’s AI-powered analysis, we explored how water users across the UK think, speak and behave online. Surfers. Wild swimmers. Paddleboarders. Sailors. Kayakers. Anglers and more. Communities already in the water, already exposed, but largely unaware of AMR.
What we found was stark.
Awareness of AMR is close to zero.
But the opportunity is just as clear. The entry points already exist — in the language people use, the values that draw them to the water, and the way they understand risk, health and environment.
You don’t reach a wild swimmer with a public health briefing. You reach her through the river she loves
This is what we call Narrative Intelligence. Finding the door that’s already open in someone’s life, and walking the story through it.
Our audience research is now live.
Explore the data. See how these communities think. Understand what will land — and what won’t.
Upstream — Radical Transparency
We are sharing the data, the thinking and the process in real time.
The data dashboard is live and accessible. The methodology is transparent. And the project will evolve as we continue to gather insight, test narratives and build content that travels.
This is a live communications experiment — we’re letting everyone in on the process as it happens. Not just the outputs but the thinking behind them.
Upstream is an open-source research project that will grow in public, phase by phase, as more data comes in, as we speak to communities and stakeholders, as the strategy takes shape, and as we craft the content.
Where we are now
Phase 1 — Live now Ten water-user communities. AMR awareness mapped. Data dashboard live.
Phase 2 — In progress Speaking to affected water-based communities and science stakeholders. Produce our messaging playbook. Finding the entry points. Source funding.
Phase 3 — Coming Content built to travel. Partnerships with the organisations already working on this problem.
Phase 4 — Coming A campaign that doesn’t just inform people. But moves them.
Who is this for?
Upstream is designed to be used by researchers, policymakers, science communicators, NGOs and by the private and public sector working on solutions. By anyone trying to make this issue land with a real audience.
The data is open. The methodology is open. The project is live.
If you’re working on AMR, water, or public health – or any complex issue that isn’t cutting through – we’d love to hear from you.
