The Science Media Centre is not restricted to reacting to the headlines, and has helped scientists to more proactively set the agenda by bringing new science or evidence to journalists. This comes from our regular briefings, which take a variety of forms and cover a wide range of topics. Many are background briefings introducing journalists to the best experts and science on controversial issues like nuclear waste, nanotechnology, emerging diseases, or animal research, for example. They may also be news briefings where the SMC works with scientists to give the national media a new story on developments within science, whether it’s a report on climate change, a paper on stem cells being published in a leading journal, or science funding cuts in the latest budget. In addition, the SMC encourages leading experts to ‘speak out’ to the media about developments they believe may pose a threat to scientific research – not something science has been renowned for.
The REACT-1 team from Imperial College London has now completed round 12 of their study looking at virus prevalence across … read more
Journalists were able to join our speakers, Professor Sir Peter Horby and Professor Sir Martin Landray, Chief Investigators of the … read more
Journalists dialled in to this press briefing to hear from the modelling groups behind the modelling that fed into SPI-M, … read more
Today Novavax have announced the results of their PREVENT-19 Phase 3 Trial which looks at the overall efficacy and protection … read more
As part of the EAVE II project, researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde along with Public Health Scotland … read more
Last December fifty of the world’s leading experts on climate change and biodiversity took part in a workshop jointly organised … read more
On Tuesday Jo Churchill announced that the launch of the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR), a new … read more
The SMC brought together a panel of scientists to answer journalists’ questions about what we do and don’t know from … read more
The JUNIPER (Joint UNIversities Pandemic and Epidemiological Research) Consortium have been modelling the impact of new variants within England. Journalists … read more
The CoMix social contacts survey, run by scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, has produced regular … read more
A new study led by the University of Glasgow with the ISARIC team looks at bacterial infections and antibiotic use … read more
Last month the government announced the launch of a COVID-19 Antivirals Taskforce to search for the most promising novel antiviral … read more
With variants becoming a daily part of the media and public understanding of the pandemic, and moving into a phase … read more
How are rapid advances in stem cell research raising new scientific and ethical questions, such as the ability to extend … read more
Initial results from the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) new MAST Upgrade experiment at Culham point to a solution to … read more
With the worst of the pandemic behind us, even as our country starts to return to normal life, challenging ethical … read more
Scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Durham University and the charity Medical Detection Dogs have carried … read more
The government has announced the launch of the Cov-Boost study, commissioned through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), to … read more
Researchers from King’s College London have studied data from the UK Biobank from over 86,000 participants, looking at information on … read more
A new preprint from the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium and the University of Birmingham looks at the antibody and cellular … read more
