Symposium science and media November 24th, 2015

Now that transferring knowledge to society is becoming increasingly important for scientists, knowing how to deal with media is one aspect of an academic researcher’s range of tasks. In that light, on Tuesday Nov 24^th from 13:30-17:00, the Network of Women Professors (NVH) and the Halkes women’s network organized a joint symposium on Science and the Media. The symposium took place in the Grotius building, room GR 1.176, and several rooms in TvA 8.

The program was as follows:

The symposium kicked off with Wilma de Koning of the Board of Directors, who introduced the Mohrmann diversity policy of the university and emphasized the increasing need for being visible as a scientist.

The keynote speech was done by Maria Henneman. Henneman is member of the ‘Stichtingsbestuur’ Radboud University/RadboudUMC and owner/director of Maria Henneman Media Management BV. Her company operates on the cutting edge of (crisis)communication, media and policy. As a strategic policy and (crisis)communications advisor, she consults multinationals,  SME’s, non-profit organisations and (local) governments. Henneman also leads brainstorm sessions and media- and presentation training sessions and is an experienced chair at conference and seminars.

After the keynote, Stine Jensen presented a column on her own experiences with media as a scientist and philosopher. Jensen is a Dutch author, journalist, and philosopher. She wrote a dissertation on women and monkeys in movies, literature and science, has written several books and bundles related to gender and other topics, is a regular columnist, and presents the show "Dus ik ben" on Dutch television.

After this plenary session, attendees participated in one of multiple workshops, covering different media performances. These workshops were given by our own communication department and Stine Jensen.

1. Pitching your research (Iris Kruijen, Anne van Kessel)
How can you quickly explain, in an accessible way, the topic of your research and its most important findings? How do you make sure the relevance for larger society comes across? This workshop allowed participants to practice with these more general issues.

2. Media practice: doing a short interview (Jurjen Simmelink)
The goal of this workshop was to learn how to answer briefly to a news reporter and what you can do to improve the impression you give off. 3x10 seconds to bring yourself and your research across.

3. Preparing for an interview (Stine Jensen)
Hoe bereid je je voor op een interview? Hoe zorg je ervoor dat je overbrengt wat je wilde vertellen en wat voor rol kunnen mindfulness en ademhaling hierin spelen? De workshop ging in op de verschillende vormen van een mediaoptreden, zoals bijvoorbeeld amusement vs wetenschap en radio vs krant.

4. Disseminating science through social media (Iris Roggema, Steven den Boer)
How can you use social media tools to reach an audience of non-academics? This workshop provided information about different possible social media outlets and tips and tricks to use them.