I’m posting the following article about Inspiring Australia actions on behalf of DIISR. I’ve reported through the year about IA activities which ASC members have been involved in or should know about. It’s good to see the department is moving to a regular means of communicating its activities.
Jesse Shore
National president
How are we Inspiring Australia?
An update from the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on the Inspiring Australia report in action
“Australian Science Communicators welcomes Inspiring Australia, a report which set the agenda for science communication for the nation.”
– Dr Jesse Shore, President, and Mr Tim Thwaites, Immediate Past-President, Australian Science Communicators, February 2010
Public engagement with the sciences is essential to achieving an innovative society with a technologically skilled workforce, a scientifically literate community and well informed decision makers.
Now is the time to motivate and inspire Australians! The Australian Government, in collaboration with Australia’s top thinkers in science and innovation, teachers, journalists and other science communicators have developed a national strategy for engagement with the sciences: Inspiring Australia. The Inspiring Australia <link to http://www.innovation.gov.au/inspiringaustralia strategy, released in February 2010, aims to build a strong, open relationship between science and society, underpinned by effective communication of science and its uses.
To see the goals of the strategy achieved, partnerships between science, industry, community organisations and governments throughout Australia are essential. We invite you to get involved and benefit from all that Inspiring Australia has to offer.
Inspiring Australia has hit the ground running. Since February we’ve been building partnerships and developing activities to engage Australia in the sciences. An Inspiring Australia State and Territory Officers Working Group has been established to enhance collaboration between governments. This has already resulted in the joint funding of Inspiring Australia officers in a number of states and territories, jointly funded events around Australia and the drafting of a Framework of Principles for Science Communication Initiatives.
National Science Week, now under the banner of Inspiring Australia, was a huge success in August this year with 1.6 million people participating and the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science will continue with announcements to be made on November 17.
Two groups of experts have also been created, one looking at ways to strengthen the media’s role in communicating science, and the other establishing a system for evaluating science engagement activities. Both working groups will deliver their final reports in November.
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