Project no.

230328

MY SCIENCE

MY SCIENCE European Programme for Young Journalists

Start date of project: 1 January 2009 Duration: 18 months

CSA (Support Action)

Science in Society
SiS-2008-3.0.2.2: Support training activities of journalists and authors in the EU Member
States and the associated countries in EC-funded research laboratories

Minutes of the Conference

The Final conference was divided into three sections:

The welcome speech was by Werner Stuflesser, president of EURAC, who welcomed the speakers,
participants and colleagues to the conference. He spoke about the importance of communicating
science and the various scientific communication activities of EURAC that are targeted to bridge the
gap between science and society and the “open” nature of EURAC.
A short welcome and introduction to the project My Science, and order of the day was presented by
Eva Maria Moar, scientific coordinator My Science.

The morning Panel presentation, debate and discussion emphasized on whether researchers shall be
trained to be science communicators or the journalists shall be given deeper insight into science
communication. The invited speakers were selected in a way to represent various perspectives and be
able to present different points of view, pros and cons of different approaches. Raffalella Di Iorio
from the European Commission (DG Research, Scientific Culture and Gender Issues) presented the
priorities and expectation of the European Commission towards science communication to the society.
Peter Grünberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics from Germany made some good examples on how
important science in the daily life is and how to communicate it in a way that is understandable to
wider public. His presentation was named “explaining physics with simple pictures”, although the
presentation was absolutely simple for Prof. Grünberg, most of the audience did not understand most
of what he said. This emphasized the fact that a specialised and trained team of journalists is
required to correctly interpret and convey the information to the general public. Istvan Palugai,

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editor of a Hungarian Newspaper and well known science communicator presented his perspectives,
short history of science communication and its challenges in the future. Nuno Crato, professor of
mathematics from Portugal who was awarded EU science communicator prize in 2007 presented the
perspective of a scientist who in addition to his daily work publishes on a regular base scientific
articles in non scientific press. The session was concluded with the presentation of Steven Miller from
UK, Director of the European Science Communication Workshops, ESCoNet, organizing training on
science communications for researchers. The composition of the panel enabled the discussion on the
possibilities of cooperation between scientists and journalists.

During the first afternoon session the focus was made on Ethics in Research. In order to present the
problem in a practical and not too theoretical way, the issue was presented on the example of
research on mummies (How are ethics justified by research on mummies?). the emphasis was made on
ÖTZI the Iceman, who is on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology in Bolzano, one of the
world’s best known and most important mummies. The discussion was moderated by Albert Zink,
Paleopathologist, Scientific Director of the EURAC Institute for Mummies and the Iceman. The
European Commission’s views on ethics in research were presented by Stefan de Vos (European
Commission, DG Research, Ethics Review). The ethical aspects taken into consideration during
evaluation of projects were explained and the evaluation process was elaborated. The fact that no
ethical framework related to archaeology and Mummies in the FP7 was underlined and suggestions for
future work towards in this direction were emphasised. Wilfried Rosendahl, the Curator of the
complex of museums REM in Mannheim, Germany shared his experience on the exhibitions of mummies
and various aspects connected with their preservation. Frank Rühli, Anatomist and Academic from the
University of Zurich, Switzerland talked about his research on mummies and ethical issues connected
with it. In his summary Dario Piombino-Mascali, Anthropologist from the EURAC Institute for Mummies
and the Iceman stressed the importance of research on mummies – in terms of culture, history but also
genetics and medicine.

In the second afternoon session journalists from various European countries were presenting their
experience in science communication and approaches in their countries. The topics touched upon
were: what kind of science communication exist in Europe and what is its future; what are the lessons
to be learned from those practices, what are the best practices; how can be wider public be reached;
is science communication PR? Radek Brzozka from Poland represented Polish public TV – TVP, gave a
refreshing presentation on how journalists can make their reports interesting and awaken the curiosity
of general public towards complex issues of science; Şükrü Kaya from Turkey made a presentation on
what is done in Turkey in the field of communicating science (example of Bilim ve Teknik); Mario
Martinoli from Italy, representing European Research Media Centre youris.com talked about the
challenges of finding the common path between research and communication, and the need to adapt
to the constant changes in the methods of communication; Kathleen Van Damme from Belgium,
representing AthenaWeb presented an online tool for publishing movies on scientific topics, and
highlighted the impact that well done short films can have on the public; Bettina Weiz from Germany,
working for the public radio channel Bayrischer Rundfunk made examples of scientific radio
programmes, in particular in the field of social sciences. The journalists were discussing the role of
their media in science communication, why science is on agenda of their media, what challenges are
being faced and how the researchers shall approach media in order to communicate their research in
the proper way.

One session of the conference was also directly dedicated to the conclusion of the project. The
representatives of all project workshops were present and shared their impressions from the time
spent with the journalists in the labs. Some of them said the workshop were a kind of win-win
exchange, just because it made them aware there are things they may learn from the journalists in
terms of communicating with media. Therefore the projects was absolutely useful not only for the
journalists but for the scientists as well (in particular those who claim that media often misinterpret

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what the researchers say – just because the researchers often do not know how to communicate
properly).

The second part of the project conclusion was prize award to the authors of four best media works
written after the workshop. One of them participated in the Vienna workshop, two in the Prague
workshop and one in the Bolzano – Humanities workshop. Three of those four journalists were present
at the conference. As the price they received the invitation to write for Academia – EURAC science
magazine. They will be paid for the publication of 3 articles. They were also reimbursed the expenses
related to their travel to the conference.

Participants
The conference was advertised among all partner networks, campaign multipliers and other potential
participants. All project participants (young journalists) were also invited.