Book your place for the Voice of Young Science online workshop

Date: 4 August 2023
Time: 9-30 – 17:00
Venue: Online

Programme

Full details of all panellists will be confirmed nearer the date.

Session 1: Science and the media

A panel of researchers will share their experiences of engaging with the media and the public. They will discuss why researchers should care about how evidence is used and reported on and share their advice and top tips for helping researchers to work with the media and engage with the public.

Jessica Frank Keyes

Jessica is political reporter at City A.M. newspaper, based in the Westminster lobby, with a focus on finance, economics and business, as well as covering City Hall. She has previously worked as senior reporter for LondonWorld, focusing on crime, health and politics; as a features writer at PA Media (formerly the Press Association); and a BBC Local Democracy Reporter in Norfolk. Prior to this she trained as a journalist at the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) in Norwich, where she cut her teeth investigating failings by rural mental health services.

Poppy Danby

Poppy is a Media Relations Manager at UCL, covering the faculties of Brain Sciences and Population Health Sciences. She has previously worked as a Feature writer for national publications, including the Daily Mirror and several women’s weekly magazines. Prior to this, she trained as a journalist at the Mail Online, where she also carried out secondments at the Hull Daily Mail and Ross Parry press agency.

Session 2: What journalists are looking for

A panel of journalists and press officers will explain how they approach stories, balance the need for news and entertainment with reporting science and evidence, and deal with accusations of polarising debates and misrepresenting the facts.

David Shukman

David Shukman is a speaker, moderator and consultant on climate change and other environmental issues. For nearly twenty years, he led the BBC’s coverage of the environment with reports on the flagship TV and radio programmes and on the BBC website. A pioneer of live broadcasting from remote locations from the Amazon to Antarctica, David is described by Sir David Attenborough as “a leader in raising awareness about the most important issue facing humanity – the climate emergency.” David has reported from the Arctic 16 times and attended 11 of the UN’s climate COPs. He has given keynote speeches to sectors as diverse as pensions and shipping and moderated high-level discussions at COP27 and elsewhere. He is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute and an adviser to Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Session 3: What policymakers are looking for

A panel of policymakers and academics involved in policy will explain how evidence is used in policy, how they balance facts and values, and how they deal with a lack of good evidence, trade-offs, polarised debates and accusations of non-evidence based policy.

Session 4: The role and responsibility of Early Career Researchers

This final session reiterates the Sense about Science ethos – that researchers should take responsibility for the public discussion of science and evidence. With the support of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) we have distilled our approach into a practical guide which empowers researchers to involve the public in meaningful ways to work out how to communicate research findings.

How to register

We have 5 priority places for this event.

To apply for a place please   complete our Standing up for Science workshop application form.

Places are allocated on a first come first serve basis.

Closing date for applications: 14 July 2023