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Science communication conference |
Stempra newsletter
The importance of better relations between the research community and the media has long been recognised. Considerable effort has been devoted to media training for researchers and to briefing journalists on the way research operates. The role of research public relations has been largely overlooked. Communiqué, an initiative of AlphaGalileo Foundation in cooperation with colleagues from European research and media, aimed to understand the needs of public relations staff and find ways of helping them to get their message over more often and more effectively. The result of the consultation was a set of requirements that would be delivered by a network of national or regional offices and several trans-national services. This network would provide access to the tools to help good public relations: training, staff exchanges, news distribution, image and video libraries, and translation services. At the end of October AlphaGalileo's Steering Group of national representatives from across Europe will discuss a proposal to create a new small, not-for-profit, European body, that will set strategic targets, secure funding and manage the network. Funding will be sought from European charitable foundations, governments and the framework programmes. Already work has started on pilot exercises. AlphaGalileo Foundation and Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología are collaborating on the creation of a Madrid office that could in time support not just the AlphaGalileo service but the network as a whole. EUPRIO (the association of European University information staff) are considering creating staff exchanges to allow the best European university press offices to pass on their expertise. "Europe has some tremendous press officers in its research bodies, Barbara Gallavotti from Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Rome, Andreas Archut at the University of Bonn and Tom Miller at Imperial College, to name but three, have an vast range of skills and experience that can help create a European ethos amongst press offices to match that which exists amongst European researchers." The Communiqué Implementation Plan was launched in July at Euroscience Open Forum 2006 in Munich. At the meeting Enric Banda, director of the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació, and chair of AlphaGalileo's Advisory Council challenged Communiqué to have a working network in place to by ESOF 2008 in Barcelona. Communiqué is on course for Barcelona. The plan can be downloaded from the Communiqué web site. Comments on Communiqué and offers of help are always welcome. Peter Green |
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