An opportunity to develop your story
Fresh Science – a national competition for researchers to help them find their work’s promotional sweet spot - is coming to Canberra for the first time this year and applications are currently open.
The program takes up-and-coming researchers with no media experience and turns them into spokespeople for science, giving them an opportunity to develop their story and their voice, and a chance to try it all out in a public event but in a supportive environment.
Nominations are done online, and you just need to explain your research briefly, and provide evidence of peer review. If selected, you will take part in:
- a one-day media and communication training course with practice interviews
- an evening event where you get to practice presenting your results in an understandable and fun way
- In some states, we hold a schools forum where you will present for five minutes and take questions.
- As part of Fresh Science we will write and publish a short, media-ready profile on you.
- We will select one story per state to be written up as a press release and sent out to the media.
To be eligible you need to be:
- Early-career researchers. Age per se is not a criterion, but you must have completed your PhD (if you have one) no more than five years ago. If you’re earlier in your career, that’s fine.
- Researchers currently working in Australia and preferably for work done in Australia.
- Research which has produced peer-reviewed results i.e. you have a discovery, invention, patent etc.
- Research which is currently being undertaken, or has been published/concluded since January 2016.
- Research that is newsworthy but has not had significant media coverage.
- Researchers who can demonstrate, through the nomination form, some ability to present your research to a lay audience in a clear, interesting and informative way.
Your research must be cleared for public and media presentation. You may need to consult with your collaborators and commercial partners before nominating.
You may represent a research team if you have played a substantial role in the research and can act and be named as spokesperson. Only one member of any particular research team will be invited to participate in Fresh Science.
Read up on the program here - http://freshscience.org.au/how-to-nominate