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Issues around research and the media
AlphaGalileo Foundation
1.
AlphaGalileo Foundation delivers research news – releases, event details, publicationinformation, multimedia items – to a moderated media audience from around the world,public relations staff and interested lay audiences.
2.
The service was created at the suggestion of journalists and public relation staff in theUK and across Europe who asked for a single Internet portal carrying reputable researchnews. The service does not replace university or other web site or news services, butprovides a single site that disseminates its content by email alert, RSS feed and the socialweb to journalists who have asked to be kept up to date with specific areas of research.
3.
The service is used by all the major European research bodies, CERN, ESA, ESO, EMBL,Max Plank, CNRS, the European Commission, Elsevier, etc as well as leading UK researchbodies, including Imperial College, University of Warwick, ESRC, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, etc.
4.
The Foundation is a not–for–profit company limited by guarantee. The service isoperated as a 10 nation collaboration.
5.
The Foundation suggests that the working group should consider the following topics.
Wider access to research news
6.
AlphaGalileo was created to make more research news available to the media.Discussions on the media and research often focus on quality issues and whilst the qualityof coverage is important so is putting the widest range of news before the media andencouraging the entire research community to be proactive with the media.
7.
We believe that continuing action is required in supporting research bodies in reachingmedia they do not normally address; and supporting public relations staff whose primaryrole is to promote their employer and who sometimes lack the confidence to engage withresearch rather than educational or local media.
8.
The Foundation recommends that the working group consider what is required to makemore news available including the relationship between research groups and publicrelations staff within institutions. The joint AlphaGalileo Foundation and EuropeanCommission project 'Communiqué' made recommendations in this area. The report isavailable from AlphaGalileo – AlphaGalileo Foundation, 'Implementing a European researchmedia service: Recommendations of the Communiqué initiative following the consultationphase', 2006
News presentation
9.
The significance of the way that news is presented and the way the dialogue betweenthe research community and the media is managed by research institutions continues to becritical. The Foundation believes that it should be approached in a way that encouragescommunication rather than applying rules that tend to reduce news output.
10.
The Social Issues Research Centre's work in the MESSENGER project is a useful sourceon the way news is presented to the media and the pitfalls to be avoided. A particular
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