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 UK policy on the dosing regimen for COVID-19 vaccines has varied during the vaccination programme with the interval between … read more
Scientists at the University of Oxford have carried out a study to investigate whether daily testing of secondary school students … read more
The Drake Rugby Biomarker Study is a project that takes bodily fluid samples and neuroimaging data from professional rugby players … read more
We put on a Q&A so science and health journalists could ask their questions to JCVI members about the forthcoming … read more
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is awarding almost £20 million to 15 research studies across Britain to improve … read more
The Royal Academy of Engineering and its partners in the National Engineering Policy Centre were asked by the Government Chief … read more
A new study, published in The Lancet, looks at complications in people hospitalised with severe COVID-19 between 17 January and … read more
As we approach our second winter living with COVID, the Academy of Medical Sciences has brought together 29 leading experts … read more
The REACT-2 study from Imperial College London aims to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies across England. This round has … read more
Journalists dialled in to this press briefing to hear from the modelling groups behind the modelling of step 4 of … read more
This briefing covered the latest interim data from the largest community coronavirus testing programme, REACT. This batch of data is … read more
The Liverpool COVID-SMART Community Testing national pilot began 6 November 2020 with the aim of improving detection and bringing down … read more
One-quarter of a century since Dolly the Sheep was born at the Roslin Institute, her scientific legacy continues to inspire … read more
Scientists running the Com-COV study looking at different COVID-19 vaccine combinations are reporting their first results on immunogenicity from the … read more
The Oxford vaccine team have a preprint looking at immune responses when a long delay between first and second dose … read more
A report has been published from the Events Research Programme (ERP) pilots, which have been run across a range of … read more
The REACT team from Imperial College London are reporting a new analysis of findings on long COVID from the REACT-2 … read more
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
