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 Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the UK’s world-leading system for assessing the excellence of university research. The REF outcomes … read more
A new study from the COV-BOOST trial looking at fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccine has been published in the Lancet … read more
The UK government has committed to protecting 30% of the land and sea of the four nations to support nature … read more
The REACT-1 team from Imperial College London has now completed round 19 of their study – this is the final … read more
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the Working Group 3 part of its Sixth Assessment Report on … read more
The British Pharmacological Society and Royal College of Physicians have written a joint report on the role that pharmacogenetics – … read more
There continues to be a lot of interest and concern around the role that social media plays in the lives … read more
Researchers have carried out a study which looked at disease severity and death data from adults who had been hospitalised … read more
Energy prices are rising, the west is trying to detach from Russian fossil fuels, and we have net zero pledges … read more
The REACT-1 team from Imperial College London has now completed round 18 of their study. This batch of data includes … read more
Researchers from the GenOMICC consortium have done a study in which they compared whole genome sequences of around 7,000 patients … read more
Since March 2020, the University of Oxford-led RECOVERY trial has been testing a range of potential treatments for patients hospitalised … read more
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the Working Group 2 part of its Sixth Assessment Report on Monday … read more
Two new NIHR-funded pieces of research have developed definitions of long COVID in adults and children, which will improve research … read more
Some people with medical conditions are prescribed long-term paracetamol, usually for chronic pain. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have … read more
The MHRA has just approved the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, Nuvaxovid, for use in people aged 18 and over for a … read more
The first results coming out of the UK human challenge study, looking at what happens during the course of SARS-CoV-2 … read more
The EXPLAIN project seeks to diagnose ongoing breathlessness in coronavirus patients who were not admitted to hospital, using MRI scans … read more
The REACT-1 team from Imperial College London has now completed round 17 of their study looking at virus prevalence across … read more
Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can give an idea of a person’s risk of developing a specific disease later in life. … read more
