Getting more out of your ARC impact statements; meet the 2018 Fresh Scientists at the pub; Science Week is coming; and more

Science stakeholder bulletins

Fresh Science: join us at the pub in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and (for the first time) Canberra to meet this year’s Fresh Scientists, 60 early-career researchers with stories to tell.

Details below.

Impact statements: you’ve sweated blood getting them together and uploaded to the ARC. Can you do more with them? Or do you have other research you’d like to promote? We’d love to help you turn them into short impact stories for the public and get them out through your, and our, social media channels.

We’ll also publish a selection of them in our next Stories of Australian Science print publication. If you book five or more stories, we’ll include them as a feature spread with your logo, and design flyers that you can share with partners, hand out at Open Day and the like.

Prices range from $1,300 + GST for a single story to $1,100 + GST per story when you book five or more.

More details below.

National Science Week: more than a million people and 2,000 events—it’s big. As national publicists for the Week we can help publicise any Science Week event that grabs our interest. Make sure you register your event so we can consider it for promotion. And let me know by email if you’ve got something really special happening.

Read on for some of the early highlights.

Pitch and communication training: we have courses coming up around the country.

Melbourne: Tuesday 31 July, Tuesday 9 October
Adelaide: Wednesday 14 November
Sydney: Wednesday 4 July, Wednesday 29 August
Perth: Friday 7 December

You can book via Eventbrite, or read on for more about our bespoke training.

In this bulletin:

Case studies: highlight your best research and impact

Do you need case studies to show off your institution’s research? Or have you written ARC impact statements that you’d like to do more with? We can write them for you to use in your reports, websites and social media.

Then we can spread them far and wide via our Stories of Australian Science collection, online and in print.We’ll share your stories with our networks on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Then we’ll send 15,000 print copies to MPs, embassies, journalists, science leaders, science centres, and others.

If you commission us to write five or more case studies, we’ll include them as a feature spread including your logo in Stories, and we’ll also design a set of flyers (see image on the right) of the stories for you to use however you like.

This year’s print edition will also be presented to the world’s TV science producers at the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers in Brisbane in November and to journalists at the AAAS in Washington DC in February 2019.

Want to get involved? Just email us the details of the scientist we can get in touch with, and some background information about the research. Or, if you’ve already completed an ARC impact statement, send that and your profile to us. Then we can do the rest.

Prices range from $1,300 + GST for a single story to $1,100 + GST per story when you book five or more.

For more information visit: stories.scienceinpublic.com.au/submission

Contact Niall or Lydia (@scienceinpublic.com.au) if you’d like to share your stories of success.

Fresh Science in the Pub this June & July

Join us at Fresh Science in the pub on 6 June in Sydney, 13 June in Adelaide, 20 June in Melbourne, 27 June in Perth, 23 July in Brisbane…and for the first time ever in Canberra on 11 July.

Come enjoy a beer and hear 10 “Fresh” early-career researchers share the stories in their science.

Last year’s highlights included: how feeding chickens whole grain can help feed 100 million people; how sea snakes find their mates; smart socks for physiotherapists; whether cats and dogs are friends or foes; predicting volcanic eruptions; and more.

So, what’s #FreshSci this year?

These up-and-coming scientists will describe their scientific discoveries in the time it takes a sparkler to burn out. It’s about a minute—sparklers vary.

Join us to find out about our pub events around the country. Tickets are free, but bookings are essential.

  • Three Wise Monkeys Pub in Sydney on 6 June. Book now.
  • The Elephant British Pub in Adelaide on 13 June. Book now.
  • The Belgian Beer Café, Southbank in Melbourne on 20 June. Book now.
  • The Brisbane Hotel, in Perth on 27 June. Book now.
  • The King O’Malley’s in Canberra on 11 July. Book now.
  • Café Muse at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane on 23 July. Book now.

Also, a big thank you to our sponsors and supporters who help us find all this great talent and train them up to be our next spokespeople for science.

Fresh Science NSW is supported by the Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney and Macquarie University.

Fresh Science South Australia is supported by the South Australian Museum, Flinders University, the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide.

Fresh Science Victoria is supported by the Royal Society of Victoria, The University of Melbourne, Monash University, Deakin University, RMIT University, Swinburne University, CSIRO and La Trobe University.

Fresh Science Western Australia is supported by the Western Australian Museum, Edith Cowan University, the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University.

Fresh Science ACT is supported by Inspiring the ACT at the Canberra Innovation Network, Australian National University and UNSW Canberra.

Fresh Science Queensland is delivered in partnership with Econnect Communication and is supported by the Queensland Government, QUT, Griffith University and the University of Queensland.

Vitamania, science meets dance, NASA scientists, and what happens when galaxies collide: international guests for National Science Week 2018

Last year, 1.2 million Australians got involved in a record-breaking 2,100+ registered National Science Week events around the country, with more than 3,000 media stories explicitly mentioning National Science Week, and many more covering the events.

National Science Week runs from 11 to 19 August 2018, and will involve international science stars, including:

  • NASA scientists from the Cassini and Kepler missions touring Australia, including:
    • Aussie astrophysicist Jessie Christiansen, who looks for exoplanets and works with the citizen scientists involved in Galaxy Zoo
    • Geert Barentsen, the NASA astronomer in Silicon Valley
    • Planet hunter Natalie Batalha, the Kepler mission scientist who made Time magazine’s list of the most influential people of 2017
  • Yamilee Toussaint—US dancer, algebra teacher and founder of ‘STEM from Dance’
  • Derek Muller—Canadian-Australian host of the new documentary feature Vitamania
  • Lisa Harvey-Smith—Essex-expatriate-turned-Australian astrophysicist, author and Stargazing Live TV presenter.

The 2018 schools theme is ‘Game Changers and Change Makers’, exploring the innovators, individuals and ideas that have changed the world. It’s inspired by 2018 marking:

  • The 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
  • The 40th anniversary of the birth of the first test tube baby
  • The International Year of the Reef, exploring the science of saving these ecosystems.

So, how will you get involved?
Now is the time to plan and register your event and gain a piece of the science week action. Registration is open on the National Science Week website: scienceweek.net.au/event-holder-registration. Here’s our guide for writing a great event description.

Science in Public is again providing publicity support, so if you’re planning an event or speaker with strong media appeal, let us know—email scienceweek@scienceinpublic.com.au and we’ll consider including it in our highlight packages.

For more information about National Science Week, visit www.scienceweek.net.au or email scienceweek@industry.gov.au.

Sign up for the National Science Week newsletter via: www.scienceweek.net.au/subscription.

Pitch and communication training—helping you sell your science

Conveying the complexity of your research, your life’s work, into a 30-second grab for the media, or one-minute elevator pitch can be hard. The solution is to shape the essence of your science into a story.

Join our one-day media and communication training workshop and get some help.

We will help you find the right words to explain your research in a way that works for the media, as well as for government, industry and other stakeholders.

Two experienced science communicators will work with you to find the story in your research. Over the years we’ve helped Monash launch the world’s first printed jet engine, revealed the loss of half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, helped CERN announce the Higgs boson, and revealed the link between CSIRO’s Wi-Fi patent and Aussie astronomy.

Working journalists from television, print and radio will join us over the course of the day to explain what makes news for them. And you’ll get the chance to practice being interviewed in front of a camera and on tape.

The day’s insights and training will help you feel more comfortable in dealing with journalists when media opportunities arise.

In 2018, our media and communication training course for scientists will be in:

Melbourne: Tuesday 31 July, Tuesday 9 October
Adelaide: Wednesday 14 November
Sydney: Wednesday 4 July, Wednesday 29 August
Perth: Friday 7 December
Other cities & dates on demand.

Registration is now open for all courses via EventBrite.

Or design your own bespoke communication training course

We offer a flexible range of training programs to help your researchers understand their audiences, the essence of their story, and how to build their profile with the audiences and stakeholders that matter for their projects and for their long-term career development.

Our offerings include:

  • Meet your audience: from government, business, and/or the media
  • Make your pitch: what’s the essence of your story
  • Build your profile: websites, media, social media
  • Make your story work for mainstream media
  • Presentation training: make your story come to life
  • Photography and videography for scientists.

For more information on a bespoke course, visit www.scienceinpublic.com.au/training or call us on (03) 9398 1416.

Science in Public—planning, mentoring, communicating

Contact us to find out more about our services to train, mentor, plan and deliver media and communication strategies for science.

We offer:
Communication plans, mentoring and training
We can review your stakeholders, messages and tools and help you and your communication team refine your plans. We offer this service for individual announcements or for a whole program or institute.

Media releases, launches, and campaigns
We can help you develop an outreach program, from a simple media release through to a launch, a summit, a conference, or a film.

Publications and copy-writing
From a tweet to a newsletter, from a brochure to a Nature supplement—we can write compelling and accurate, science-driven copy that captures the essence of your story and purpose.