Science awards season heating up

Well the Oscars might be long gone but the science communication awards season is only just beginning...

I've been lucky enough to be asked to be on the jury for the Vedere la Scienza festival in Milan next week and I'm really looking forward to it.

This "International Scientific TV, Film and AV Media Festival" runs from the 30th of March to the 5th of April, 2009, and ...

As in the past editions the festival programme will embrace every scientific fields (physics, mathematics, chemistry, life sciences, natural sciences, …) but the accent will be put on astronomical and biological issues related to the important 2009 anniversaries. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and also sees the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species”.

The programme is now available on-line and it looks really interesting.



Coincidentally, the awards season continues tonight in London and one of the DVDs I produced at Agtel for the European Space Agency ESA is up for an award.

Shortlisted in the Education category of the International Visual Communications Association awards, the DVD is part of the “Project: Zero Gravity” series.

The production that's nominated tonight is our most recent “Mission 4: Space Robotics” DVD - it's a high-energy teaching tool that covers many aspects of the use of robots in space. It was great fun storyboarding the scenes we were asking the astronauts to film on board the ISS. And I got a buzz when video tapes arrived on my desk still with the velcro on them to stop them floating off in zero gravity!

Prizes for posters

Putting a poster together to explain your research can be a challenge for any scientist starting out - but help is now at hand.

The British Science Association team have launched this year's poster competition for early-career researchers funded by one of the UK research councils.

Last year's winner is pictured above, and the RCUK-sponsored perspectives scheme...

...gives these scientists valuable training and experience in discussing their research with non-specialists, as well as training in poster design and a chance to explore the social and ethical aspects of their work.

Finalists display their posters at the British Science Festival in September, and cash prizes are awarded by a panel of expert judges.

You can find out more about the scheme at www.britishscienceassociation.org/perspectives

2009 Science Communication Conference

Just got an e-mail about this year's Science Communication Conference in London organised by the British Science Association... Last year's event was great and this year's theme is...

"Behaviour and Choice - exploring the role that science communicators should or could play as influencers of behavioural change."

Early-bird bookings are now open and here's more detail from their e-mail...

The British Science Association is working in partnership with the Wellcome Trust to organise the 2009 Conference. This annual 2 day Conference is being held on 22 & 23 June at King's Place in London.

...the keynote address will be given by Jonathon Porritt, Programme Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.

Bookings are now open and early-bird rates are available until 5 April so book soon to save money.

To book your place and view the draft programme visit: www.britishscienceassociation.org/sciencecommunicationconference

SFI research boosts African science

Turns out that SFI's policy of encouraging open access publication of the research it funds could have a big pay off for scientists in Africa and in developing countries around the world.

SFI recently sent out a note that said ...

Where a research publication arises in whole or in part from SFI funded research (i.e. where one or other of the researchers concerned receives SFI funds in support of their endeavours), the SFI Open Access Availability of Published Research Policy will be adhered to.

...and SciDev.Net has now reported that research published in Science recently demonstrates that "making articles freely available online can widen the participation of developing world scientists in global science":

Researchers at the University of Chicago in the United States measured the extent to which making papers available on an open access basis affected how many times those papers were cited, and by whom.

Using Thompson Scientific's Citation Indexes and Fulltext Sources Online, they surveyed 26 million articles from more than 8,000 journals, their associated citations from 1945–2005 and online availability from 1998–2005.

[...]

"Our study shows that people who have access to journals in poor countries use them," says James A. Evans, the leading author of the research, published in Science last week (20 February). "If they weren't freely available they wouldn't use them with the same frequency, and they may not be able, as a result, to themselves publish in top journals."

Ironically it looks like you've to pay to get full access to the original paper in Science!

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