For an immediate start, the ASC is seeking the support of a temporary contractor with technical skills in membership database migration/management and web development who can invoice for their time. We expect this role to run for approximately 1 to 3 months, with the potential for ad hoc support needed for the next 6 to 12 months. We are seeking someone who can start immediately.
We expect the project’s scope to include two major parts: database backend set-up and development and frontend website development. At this stage, we are happy to receive applications from people with the capability to perform in both of these areas or the first part only.
Key accountabilities
Provide technical support for migrating our membership database onto our new membership system,
Ensure the new system is configured correctly for effective membership and data management for now and in the future,
Provide technical support for team members and troubleshoot any issues that arise in relation to the migration,
Build a new website for the organisation to meet our needs (part 2 of the project), and
Other activities as appropriate and requested by the Executive Committee.
We are looking for someone who:
is technically competent across web and data platforms,
has excellent communication skills,
can manage their own time and priorities, and
can rapidly problem-solve around complex technologies and systems.
You’ll find this role easier if you:
have relevant knowledge of association/membership management systems and experience in database migration (especially with Membes),
have web development experience,
have an awareness of data privacy regulations and principles,
are familiar with the principles of using a CRM and accounting software (such as Xero), and
are familiar with integrating access across systems and websites.
We will accept EOI’s from anyone who considers themselves capable to complete the core role, and encourage all to apply even if you do not meet all criteria explicitly.
This role will be contracted at an hourly rate of $30–50 (ex. GST) pending experience. Including additional load during the conference season, the estimated time requirement is between 6–10 hours per week (more initially as you become familiar with our systems).
Please do not hesitate to get in touch via office@asc.asn.au if you are interested in discussing the role and your suitability. The role will be filled once a suitable candidate has been found. This expression of interest will remain open for at least one week from 3 April 2024.
About the Australian Science Communicators
The Australian Science Communicators is the peak body for science communication in Australia. Established in 1994, it represents a body of over 200 members with an interest in science communication.
This event is being run by our friends over at the Science Journalists Association of Australia who have extended an invitation to ASC members to join. We are grateful to the SJAA for this professional development opportunity for our members.
Bianca Nogrady will run two workshops covering everything you need to know to become a successful freelancer
April 4 and April 11 for current SJAA & ASC members
Bianca Nogrady, science journalist, former SJAA President & former ASC Vice President
Freelancing used to be viewed as something you did between in-house jobs. Now it’s a thriving, viable and exciting career path in science journalism that can give you flexibility, long-term security, and variety.
In this two-part online workshop, experienced freelance science journalist, Bianca Nogrady will cover everything you need to build and maintain a great career as a freelance science journalist, including:
the pros and cons of freelancing
setting up your business
working out your niche
starting out
finding stories
pitching
choosing when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’
the money questions
invoicing and getting paid
how to make yourself indispensable to editors
There will be lots of opportunity for questions, and this is aimed at everyone from early-career to established journalists. So come hang out and learn from one of the best.
The 1 hour sessions will be on Zoom for ASC & SJAA members. The recordings will be available for SJAA members only.
This opportunity is available for current members of the ASC and SJAA only. Members can register for one or both sessions below:
Any questions about the above event, please reach out to the events inbox at events@asc.asn.au
This event is being run by our friends at the SJAA, and ASC members have been offered complementary access. We are grateful for the opportunity.
This is aligned with the ASC’s strategic priority of engaging with our friends and colleagues both here in Australia and overseas to deliver shared value where we can. We expect to see more shared member-only events with SJAA and with other peak bodies unlocked for ASC members into the future.
Our online networking events are starting up again for 2024, with the amazing co-hosts Phil and Claire taking lead to coordinate a series of online opportunities to connect with peers and share knowledge.
Catch up with old friends, make new friends, colleagues and mentors/mentees as ASC national hosts a networking event amongst members.
These monthly events are to be an opportunity to interact and chat with other members within ASC. Depending on the host, these session could include breakout rooms, 1:1 interactions or group discussions. Please come ready to turn your audio and camera on to have the best potential experience out of the event.
The first of the 2024 series has been scheduled for 14 March, hosted by Phil Dooley.
ASC Members Networking Event online (register directly on Zoom) Hosted by Phil Dooley Thursday, 14 March 2024; 12:30pm AEDT | 12:00pm ACDT | 11:30pm AEST | 11:00am ACST | 9:30am AWST
The full series of online networking events is still quite tentative for the year, so make sure to check out the events tab for updates and mark the SCOPE newsletter as not spam. The team have opted for a range of times and dates so that there are options that hopefully suit a range of circumstances. For now, the rough plan is:
Thursday 14 March, 12:30 pm AEDT
Wednesday 17 April, 5:30 pm AEDT
Tuesday 14 May, 12:30 pm AEDT
Thursday 13 June, 12:30 pm AEST
Friday 12 July, 12:30 pm AEST
Tuesday 20 August, 6:30 pm AEST
Thursday, 12 September, 12:30 pm AEDT
Tuesday 15 October, 12:30 pm AEDT
Wednesday 13 November, 5:30 pm AEDT
A big thank you to Phil Dooley and Claire Harris for running these last year, and for stepping up to assist again this year. If you are keen to support this effort, please get in touch directly with Claire or Phil, or with the Secretaries for Events via events@asc.asn.au
Join Sarah and the Science in Public team for casual dinner and/or drinks at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Southbank, Melbourne.
The event is intended to be an informal catchup. Pay your own way: pop by for a drink or stay on for dinner.
The details Location: The Belgian Beer Cafe; 5 Riverside Quay, Southbank, Melbourne When: Tuesday, 12 March from 5:30 pm What’s happening: Informal catchup. Drinks and/or dinner. For: ASC Members and ASC-interested friends
Please RSVP via email to sarah@scienceinpublic.com.auso that she can give the pub appropriate numbers. And if you lose the team on the night, feel free to call 0413 332 489 to find the group.
About the venue: At Belgian Beer Cafe Melbourne, we pride ourselves on offering an extensive selection of beers from around the world. Our tap beer and bottle menu includes classic Belgian styles like Trappist, Dubbels, Tripels, and Saisons, as well as local and other international brews. We also serve an excellent selection of wines and cocktails, so there is definitely something for everyone. Find out more.
This event is hosted by Sarah Brooker & Science in Public. Science in Public is a corporate member of the ASC. A big thank you to Sarah for coordinating.
This event is being hosted by our friends at the SJAA.
While we have confirmed that the live event is available for ASC members to attend, the recording of the event is likely to be limited to SJAA members only. We recommend registering and attending for the live event if this is of interest to you.
A discussion on research integrity and scientific misconduct with Professor David Vaux January 31 18:00-19:30 AEDT online, free
Professor David Vaux
From accusations of plagiarism against Harvard’s former president to the case against Marc Tessier-Lavigne and over to the horrific case of Paolo Macchiarini’s plastic windpipes — scientific misconduct has exploded into the public eye in recent times. Those high-profile stories are captivating, but they really only scratch the surface of a growing problem: There’s a lot of dodgy research out there and more is being uncovered every year.
One of the detectives investigating the scene of scientific misconduct crime goes by the name of Davo.
Professor David “Davo” Vaux is a world-renowned cell biologist and one of Australia’s foremost research integrity experts. For more than a decade, he’s been calling for the establishment of an independent ombudsman / research integrity office in Australia to investigate cases of scientific misconduct. He is also the inaugural winner of the David Vaux Research Integrity Fellowship Award, established by the Australian Academy of Science in his name, and a member of the board of directors of The Center For Scientific Integrity, the parent organization of the Retraction Watch blog.
The Science Journalists Association of Australia is thrilled to have David present on research integrity issues in Australia, explore how to spot dodgy research and explain why researchers might cut corners, fabricate data and falsify experimental results.
Direct from Davo: “This talk will provide some examples of where science can go wrong, and will be illustrated by examples of papers by high profile researchers in prestigious journals that would only have had some value had they been printed on absorbent paper with perforated pages.” (emphasis mine)
It’ll be on Zoom, so BYO, come hang out and learn from one of the best. Details below.
The important stuff!
When: Wednesday, January 31, 17:00-18:30 AEST | 18:00-19:30 AEDT | 16:30-18:00 ACST | 17:30-19:00 ACDT | 15:00-16:30 AWST
Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of representing the ASC at the STA Leaders Dialogue held at the Google Offices in Darling Harbour, Sydney.
Had the opportunity to visit @google yesterday for the @ScienceAU Leadership Dialogue as the @auscicomm delegate. Lots of great discussion on policy wins and direction – and a great venue.
The event was a summary of STA’s activities and policy wins for the past 12 months. {I took some photos of the slides but missed their policy wins – I’ll update this soon with the detail}.
In preparation for this dialogue, the STA membership highlighted 10 priority areas to focus on in advocacy for 2023. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first three priorities are to do with investment in science and R&D, followed by a focus on re-industrialising Australia’s economy.
In the breakout session, I worked on this challenge with a small team and our discussion tried to articulate the sovereign risk posed to Australia should we not rapidly turnaround the decreased R&D funding trend. STA President, Prof. Mark Hutchinson raised his vision for Australia deliberately choosing to retire the idea of Australia being the lucky country, arguing that we should focus on becoming a hopeful one.
Priorities 5-7 relate to STEM education and supporting the STEM workforce. These are areas the ASC can strongly engage, and I will continue to find opportunities for our members to contribute their expertise and vision here. STEM education was a significant theme of the dialogue, with many STA organisational leaders highlighting the need for more STEM training and for specialist teachers. I am sure that we have members who can bolster this advocacy with case studies and impact evaluation to support the evidence base for this ask.
Priorities 8 through 10 focused on STA’s advocacy in championing diversity in STEM. This is where STA’s Superstars of STEM program, along with their support for initiatives such as Deadly Science feature.
I raised my concern that there wasn’t a specific aspiration to better address the key advocacy platform theme we’ve been sharing over the past 12 months – namely the underappreciation of science communication expertise, and the significant gap in capability in forming the evidence base for Australian communication and engagement programs. We will continue to engage STA over the coming months and years to attempt to better articulate these issues.
After the dialogue, there was a networking session. It was great to see past ASC President Wilson da Silva at the networking (who had some ideas about future awards), several Superstars of STEM, and colleagues from across the industry. We had some productive discussions, and I hope that it will translate into a couple of areas being better represented on our membership into the future.
The networking event was also a small chance to farewell Prof. Mark Hutchinson who’s three-year term is coming to an end in three weeks. We welcomed incoming President elect, Prof. Sharath Sriram, as he takes on the role. The ASC is glad to offer our engagement and support into the future.
Due to technical connection issues, we have had to reschedule this event to 30 October.
Professor Toby Walsh is the 2023 winner of the Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding Science, and he joins the Australian Science Communicator’s co-President, Dr Tom Carruthers, in conversation about his win, his approach to explaining AI, and everything else.
Toby teaming up with AI (image via UNSW)
The Australian Academy of Science (where Toby is a Fellow) shares how the Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW has helped shape the conversation globally on the ethical implementation of AI. He writes regularly for print and online media and has authored several books on AI for general audiences.
Join us to find out more from Toby on his experience in science media, what it feels like being recognised by the Eurekas, and to add the ASC’s warm congratulations for his award.
The event will start with a short conversation with Toby, talking about his approach to public engagement and what’s important to consider when sharing stories about AI. We will then open to cover questions you may have for Toby.
Professor Toby Walsh is a world-renowned authority in artificial intelligence (AI), exploring subjects such as self-driving cars and autonomous weapons. On television, in books and at academic forums he leads conversations about our AI-driven future: what it will look like, how we can prepare and what we should be wary of.
Australia Museum, citation for Prof Tob Walsh, 2023 Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding Science
Hear from an array of people who might be able to answer the ‘What’s next?’ question that poses many of us. Featuring professionals across a range of careers and career stages, this event will address practical advice and tips for progressing your career.
This will be relevant for students looking to start their professional career in SciComm, as well as those who are well established in their career and/or potentially considering a future role change.
Hosted by ASC Vice President, Jen Martin, hear from:
Simon Torok
Sonya Pemberton
Rachel Nowak
Catriona Nguyen-Robertson
Belinda Smith
This session started with a panel discussion before jumping into an opportunity to chat directly to the speakers via breakout rooms (not recorded). This event was open to ASC members and non-members.
Speaker profiles
Belinda Smith
Belinda Smith became a science journalist after realising she wasn’t going to cut it as a scientist. Based in Melbourne, she’s currently a science reporter at the ABC. Her work appears on the ABC News website and has featured in the Best Australian Science Writing 2016 and 2018. You can also hear her talking about science on local radio and RN. In her spare time, Bel’s a GPS artist who runs routes in the shape of animals. Find her tweets @sciencebelinda and impressive GPS art on Insta @animalpunruns.
Catriona Nguyen-Robertson
Dr Catriona Nguyen-Robertson sings in the laboratory and contemplates immunology in the shower. She trained as an immunologist and is now an enthusiastic science communicator and educator. You can often catch her singing and dancing on social media and around Museums Victoria as a Learning Facilitator. She also works with the Science Communication Teaching Team (led by A/Prof. Jen Martin!) at The University of Melbourne, where she teaches the next generation of STEM researchers how to their work.
She is the Science Engagement Officer for the Royal Society of Victoria and regularly engages with science outreach programs, such as National Science Week, Skype a Scientist, Pint of Science, and BrainSTEM – sharing science online, on radio, and in schools across Australia and beyond. In addition to her work, Catriona is an advocate for diversity and inclusion in STEM, and received an Out for Australia 30 Under 30 Award in 2022.
Rachel Nowak
Dr Rachel Nowak is a consultant, an advisor, a scientist and a journalist. She has been working in science, technology and innovation on three continents. Her specialities include science journalism, knowledge mobilisation, research and technology assessment, and stakeholder engagement. She has been Washington Bureau Chief and Australasian Editor of New Scientist magazine. She was Director of Research Marketing and Communications at the University of Melbourne. She founded the social-good brain tech start-up The Brain Dialogue.
Rachel did her PhD in agricultural science at the University of Leeds. She studied writing, alongside poets and novelists, at The Johns Hopkins University.
Her award-winning science journalism has changed R&D and medical practice, and research law and policy around the world.
Rachel immigrated to Australia on a Distinguished Talent visa for her international record of outstanding achievements in science communication.
Simon Torok
Dr Simon Torok is CEO and Director of Scientell Pty Ltd, a science communication business specialising in environmental and climate change communication.
Simon distils technical information for non-scientific audiences to communicate the importance of science in our lives and its role in understanding the environment. Simon has a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication from the Australian National University, and completed a PhD in climate change science at the University of Melbourne. Simon has managed communication for CSIRO in Australia and for the Tyndall Centre in England. He was editor of the Helix and Scientriffic science magazines, and has published more than 200 newspaper, magazine and scientific journal articles. He has co-authored 20 popular science and climate change books, several of which have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Hungarian.
Sonya Pemberton
The incredibly creative Sonya Pemberton is one of Australia’s leading documentary filmmakers; an Emmy Award recipient and record-breaking five-time winner of the prestigious Eureka Prize for Science Journalism.
Did you know that Sonya’s passion is creating quality science documentaries for international audiences? Sonya has written, directed and produced over 70 hours of broadcast documentary, her films winning over 80 international awards. As a writer and director, her films include the critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning feature length specials ‘Cracking COVID’ (ABC), ‘VITAMANIA’ (SBS, ARTE, CuriosityStream) and ‘Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines’ (SBS, ARTE) and ‘Vaccines-Calling the Shots’ (PBS NOVA). Her multi award-winning film ‘Catching Cancer’ (SBS, Nat Geo) was an expose of viruses causing cancer and her film ‘Immortal’ (SBS, Smithsonian), featuring the work of Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, won the 2012 Emmy award for Outstanding Science. Sonya has also executive-produced many award-winning factual series and one-off programs, including ‘Carbon- the unauthorised biography’ (ABC, CBC, ARTE), ‘Uranium: Twisting The Dragon’s Tail’ (SBS, PBS and ZDF/ARTE), and ‘CRUDE – the incredible journey of oil’ with Dr Richard Smith.
Previously Head of Specialist Factual at ABC Television, Sonya commissioned and managed over three hundred hours of factual television; her understanding of audiences’ desire for smart, accessible television saw ratings rise across the genres.Sonya has been honoured with Australian Health Journalist of the Year in 2011 and 2013, the 2014 Thornett Award for the Promotion of Reason, the Jill Robb Award in 2015, and in 2016 she received the Stanley Hawes Award for contribution to documentary.
Jo Chandler is the 2023 winner of the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, and she joins the Australian Science Communicator’s co-President, Dr Tom Carruthers, in conversation about her win, her award winning piece, science journalism, and everything else.
In her blog, she shares how excited and honoured she felt to be awarded the prize, and how she felt her winning story entangled exploration, science, politics and policy all together with human ambition and endevour.
Join us to find out more from Jo on her broad experience in science journalism, what it feels like being recognised by the Eurekas, and to add the ASC’s warm congratulations for her award.
The event
The event started with a short conversation with Jo, talking about her award winning piece and her views on what’s important to consider when sharing science in today’s media landscape.
The Australia Museum’s citation for Jo Chandler
Jo Chandler’s longform essay Buried Treasure follows the most ambitious Australian Antarctic endeavour in a generation. The award-winning journalist had tracked the story for over a decade before pitching her article, which skilfully navigates urgent questions about science, our heating planet and the human condition.
The piece was published in the Griffith Review (Edition 77: Real Cool World), 2 August 2022
Distinguished Professor Arnan Mitchell is an accomplished researcher who – in the words of grant assessors – started out as being ‘unheard of’, to someone with an ‘international reputation’, now leading an Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence, the highest amount of funding awarded by the ARC.
In a webinar in September 2023, Arnan discussed
the importance of science communication in establishing reputation,
demonstrating a track record, and how they can lead to securing successful
grants.
We sat down with Arnan, and science communicator Rachael Vorwerk, to ask some follow-up questions about why science communication is such a ‘damn good investment’ (in Arnan’s words!).
“A damn good investment”: the power of long-term strategic science communication
Arnan, how do you fund science communication on a budget?
Most universities invest in science
communicators centrally – at their research office, and sometimes at the school
and faculty level. My suggestion would
be to find out who these people are and have a discussion with them about what
they are looking for and how best to engage with them. If you have a little bit of money (or you can
convince your university to invest in this), the next thing to do is to try to
get some professional pictures – both of you and your team in the lab or out in
the field doing research and some interesting and engaging pictures of your
research. Engaging pictures will make people want to read about your work and
can be a great way to get attention. Do this regularly so that you build up a library
of great images. Probably the next step up is to engage a science communicator
as part of your team. Maybe you could fund a day a week for someone from the
central team? Or share a science communicator with a collaborative centre?
(hint: most ARC Centres of Excellence have a budget for a science communicator,
if there is a relevant centre in your institution, maybe have a discussion with
them about whether you could share the cost of a science communicator?).
Rachael, do you meet regularly with your team
of academics to plan your media schedule?
In a team of about 40 researchers,
there are two ways I keep up to date with them. The first is through weekly
scheduled meetings with my Director, Arnan, where he reports on whether there
are any newsworthy events coming up from the team. The second way is our fortnightly
team meetings – where we have a schedule of update presentations and
achievements, and I can get a sense of any interesting news stories coming up.
One benefit of being embedded within the research team is that I feel very ‘on the pulse’ with news, and over the three years as I’ve been working with the researchers, more and more team members have been coming up to me at the end of team meetings, telling me about updates with their research – this is a major shift compared to when I was chasing the team for stories in the beginning! There’s something to be said for being present in the team and attending these team meetings, I’ve found that trust only grows over time.
Rachael, do you ever have periods of ‘no
news’ and what do you do in these moments to keep the momentum going?
I always try to find news – and have a
few mechanisms to do so (as mentioned above). However, being the science
communication for a small research team means that the definition of ‘news’
changes slightly.
I have the luxury of working on
researchers’ stories that aren’t always ‘newsworthy’, or suitable for a media
release. With these stories, I like to work with the researcher to find other strategic
channels for their news – it might be through a case study on our Centre
website that can be sent to an industry partner, or a LinkedIn post from the researcher
themselves which helps them to build their online profile, or perhaps even something
that turns into a Three Minute Thesis that helps the student to solidify their
research elevator pitch.
By having my weekly meetings with
Arnan and attending the fortnightly team meetings, I find that there is always
news flowing in!
Arnan, who
should pay for science communication and how do you convince them?
Good question! The only explicit funding source I have been able to find to support science communication over the long term is the ARC Centre of Excellence scheme. Often short-term programs will have some funds to support promotion, but this is usually a single event (like a launch). My view is that science communication is investment in reaching your stakeholders including industry end-users, and so if you are able to do industrial work (like we have been), then maybe try to build an overhead into this industrial work to support your team (including a science communicator?). I am currently working with my university to make funding for a long term embedded science communication as part of the funding that the university would provide to research centres.
Arnan, at what
point in the research cycle should you think about science communication?
I would
say from the very beginning. I am very outcome oriented – so I like to try to
imagine the outcome that I want to achieve. What story would I like to be
telling and to who? What would I like them to do in response to this
story? This then becomes the end point
in a plan to do the research to be able to tell that story most effectively.
What images would be best to include here?
So, in
short, I believe we should try to imagine the story we want to tell and the
science we want to communicate right from the very beginning.
Rachael: What are the differences between a
role in a central media team at university, compared with being embedded within
a research team as a science communicator?
One of the main differences I have
found between the two roles is that in a central media team (from my experience
in the media team at CSIRO), you jump in and out of a researchers’ life,
depending on when they have a journal article coming out. However, being
embedded within a research team means that you are with the researchers’
through thick and thin – you know when they’ve put in a grant application
because you probably helped them with it, then you know when they didn’t
succeed, you know when they try again, and then you know when they finally
succeed. It’s this long-term relationship building and deep trust that is so
satisfying in being embedded within the research team itself.
The other main difference is that it can get quite lonely being the only non-academic in a team of academics. Contrast this with a media team, and you have other communications-minded people around you that you can brainstorm with, who are completely on the same wavelength as you, they get it. This is the biggest disadvantage I’ve felt in the embedded model, however it just means you need to pro-actively reach out to other like-minded people and attend things like the Australian Science Communicators Conference!
Lastly, Arnan, you say science communication
is a damn good investment, show me the money!
It is very hard to
draw a direct link between the investment we have made in science communication
and the increase in value of our research (both income and impact) – it is hard
to isolate the specific ‘cause and effect’. The number and scale of research
projects that we have been successful in winning has certainly increased over
the years while we have been pursuing this strategy – so there is definitely a
correlation – is it cause and effect?
Recall our
hypothesis: if assessors or decision makers already knew what we were doing and
had a positive view of it, then we were more likely to be successful in the
decisions that these people would make. I can identify a few specific examples
where this is clearly working. There have been several times where I have been
introduced to people at conferences and the people (who I have not yet met) that
say they already know me because they are following what I am doing on LinkedIn
or other online media – this clearly shows that the first part of our
hypothesis is working. Several of these people have spontaneously asked whether
I was planning on submitting a Laureate Fellowship and following up with
encouragement that they thought I would be very well suited for this (including
one person who was on the ARC college of experts). This indicates that the sort
of people who might be making these sorts of decisions already felt like they
knew who I was and were feeling positive about that.
There have been a
couple of instances where we have deliberately been talking about some unusual
applications of photonics (for example visible wavelength photonics) in our
media stories – fishing to see if people are interested. In one case, this
resulted in a company engaging us to do a project on integrated photonics and
this funded us to turn what we thought was possible into a reality. This is an
example of the science communication about what we thought was possible, then leading
to engagement with end users to turn that possibility into a reality (flipping
the traditional model of doing the research first, then communicating what you
have done).
I have also been invited to give higher profile talks – e.g. plenaries at major international conferences (such as SPIE Photonics West in 2023) – sometimes I feel like ‘who the hell do I think I am?!’ but then I think about this as science communication leading the research agenda.
Thank you to Rachael and Arnan for your time contributing to this Q&A and webinar.
