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Our briefings for journalists fall into three categories - Horizon Scanning, News-Related Backgrounders and News Briefings.
These briefings fit well with the Centre's brief on a number of
levels: helping us to provide the media with access to accurate,
evidence based information about controversial subjects; enabling
scientists to be more pro-active and on the front-foot about issues
likely to arouse public concern; and helping journalists to scan
the horizon and get background information on stories they will
be covering in the coming months.
Having initially planned to hold a briefing per month, the Centre now has on average one a week. All are well attended by the national media and despite often being offered as backgrounders, most have resulted in positive media coverage. When the Centre solicited the media reaction to our first year's activities, the briefings won a huge vote of confidence with over 20 journalists from the national media saying that the briefings were consistently high quality and extremely useful for background and good stories.
The subjects for these briefings emerge from the on-going dialogue that the Centre's staff have with scientists, science press officers and journalists.
One of the advantages of the Centre's independence is our ability to bring scientists from different scientific institutions onto the same platform. For example our briefing on the science behind waste brought together four scientists funded by four different Research Councils; our briefing on the Hashmi case saw the family sharing a platform with the HFEA, the BMA and the IVF specialist form Nottingham.
For details about forthcoming briefings, please contact Simon Levey smc@sciencemediacentre.org / 0207 670 2980.
Here is a list of recent briefings:
19 January 2010 The Royal Academy of Engineering has published a new report detailing the challenges facing the built environment in the 21st century, including meeting 2050 targets to cut carbon emissions from buildings and to make all buildings carbon-neutral by 2020. The speakers outlined the emerging discipline of building engineering physics, which enables designers to manipulate the characteristics of buildings to improve energy efficiency, and argued for government to prioritise the training of skilled people to carry out essential engineering work.
19 January 2010 PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluoroctane sulphonate) are byproducts formed in the manufacture of non-stick surfaces, flame-resistant and waterproof items. There is evidence from animal models that this family of chemicals (PFCs) can cause thyroid hormone imbalance and previous studies have also suggested workers exposed to very high PFOA may have changes in their thyroid hormone levels. In this first study of its kind, experts have investigated whether there is any evidence of such a link in the general population. To coincide with publication, the authors came to the SMC to brief journalists on their findings.
15 January 2010 The Science Media Centre hosted the media launch of David Nutt's new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, following his sacking from the governments Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Four scientists, including Professor Nutt, briefed journalists on the background to the new council and its plans.
14 January 2010 The potential of stem cells as a treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) has been widely reported, but whether they will fulfil that potential remains unclear. A new £1million partnership between the MS Society and the UK Stem Cell Foundation (UKSCF) will, for the first time, provide specific funding for stem cell research in MS. Experts in the field briefed journalists on what the future holds, in particular, the promise of neural stem cells and the possibilities for repairing the damaged central nervous system.
07 January 2010 The SMC hosted members of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee for this briefing on the use of nanotechnology in the food industry, how these technologies are likely to develop and whether, and where, regulation might be necessary. The briefing launches the Committee's report on the issue.
05 January 2010 Following on from a recent paper published in Science, which purported to show a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and a particular virus, researchers at Imperial College London analysed blood samples from 186 CFS patients and found that none carried the virus, casting doubt on the previous findings. The new findings are published in the journal PLoS One.
04 January 2010 The Mental Health Foundation has published a new report on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a relatively new therapy which has been proven to cut relapse rates for those who experience more than two episodes of depression, and has been recommended for recurrent depression by NICE since 2004. However, access for GPs and their patients remains low. The authors of the report came to the SMC to talk about what MBCT involves, its benefits and evidence base, and how to make it more easily available.
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