The situation could be improved if research institutes employed more
communications specialists with scientific research backgrounds. This seems
to me to be quite common in other European countries, but possibly not so in
Britain. I'm afraid I don't have any figures to back this up; it's just a
general impression based on personal knowledge.
Francis
---End Quoted (and cut) Message---
How right you are. Some universities do have scientifically qualified PR
folks, but nothing like as many as they have in the USA.
It is partly because of this that I suggested working with a Research
Council. It has specialists who do not get distracted by phones calls about
revolting students.
I come back in here because I have had another thought on the way to go
about this with a Research Council. If this really is ground breaking stuff,
then they might like it for their own in house publication. This would deal
with Mun-Keat's justified beef about the dearth of opportunities to write
features.
Something like the EPSRC's "Pioneer" publication would also deal with the
problem of journalist not wanting to talk to PR people, although this notion
is at variance with my understanding of how science writers work.
Something that appears in Pioneer would stand a good chance of being picked
up elsewhere, especially if the EPSRC decided to put out a press release to
go with it, thus grabbing two bites of the cherry.
MK
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