Scientists as Innovators in the Media

This talk will describe the upcoming establishment of a Science Media Centre and Research Lab in Denmark. This initiative will like science media centres around the world build bridges between research and media in order to ensure evidence-based science communication in the media, whenever science is on the agenda. In order to tune a future Danish Science Media Centre’s activities to the Danish research and media environment, the centre’s activities will be developed in collaboration with university researchers nationwide within the field of science communication and journalism. The action and design-based research methodology will guarantee that the centre’s activities can continuously meet new demands put forward due to, for example, public interest, political decisions, and media development. In this manner, Science Media Centre and Research Lab will act as first movers—developing and supporting researchers, communication departments, as well as the media. These research projects will thus ensure sure that future science communication will be pitched for new media. Like other science media centres around the world the Danish Science Media Centre and Research Lab will act both as an independent, time-efficient, and credible service for journalists. It will also establish contact between journalists and researchers. This will give journalists easy access to interesting stories, background sources, as well as case studies, images, audio, and video. And the new Danish centre will work closely in an international network with the centres in Australia, Canada, England, Japan and New Zealand sharing resources and experiences, exchanging national news and facilitating important scientific debates internationally. But the Danish Science Media Centre and Research Lab will also be a living laboratory and a common meeting ground for scientists and journalists. Debates on research communication, press conferences, speed dating, and other informal meetings will ensure enhanced dialogue and better understanding between the two worlds and will help build bridges between science and the media will be developed. Finally, The Science Media Centre and Research Lab will also advise researchers and offer media training courses to boost their confidence when working with the media. For individual researchers, this could lead to more funding because they communicate better and their research is exposed in the media, thus rewarding their attempts to communicate their research to the public.