I'd say the "have difficulty" option makes more sense simply because I can't imagine any scientist being reluctant to be acknowledged as a scientist by researchers themselves

This is another suggestion.

Linda's answer is good, but your understanding of the phrase might use a little more thinking, IMHO.

The gramatical subject of the sencence is not "i ricercatori", but "i momenti". This might be due to bad Italian writing (loss of control of a convoluted prose), of course, but I think it's a conscious decision of the author.

I think he means that scientist tend to ignore the specific relevance / importance of communication: the instances (the moments) of communication are hardly recognized as such by scientists themselves - i.e. they do not recognize their specific nature of *communication* and tend to treat them casually, without a consistent approach.

In other words, scientists themselves are not aware that communication is a specific activity, different in scope, aim and tecnique from science and research, and have not evolved approaches and strategies to use "i momenti di comunicazione" to good advantage.