The Early Bird registration deadline is fast approaching!
Considerable discounts are available for those 'Early Birds' booking before Tuesday 31st March 2009. Make sure you don't miss out, Book Now!
James Harding editor of The Times UK will join Ian Katz Deputy Editor of the Guardian in WCSJ2009 plenary ‘Editors: what future for science?’ The Plenary includes other key media figures from the UK and USA: Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering, BBC; Robert Lee Hotz, Science Columnist Wall St Journal; Laura Chang, Science Editor, New York Times; and John Rennie, Editor in Chief, Scientific American.
Joining the plenary on New Media will be Ben Hammersley, Associate Editor, Wired Magazine UK, who amongst other achievements in multimedia reporting coined the term podcasting in an article for the Guardian. Finally Sir David King Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, will be in conversation with Professor Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to discuss climate change reporting as we approach the crucial United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Copenhagen, this December. http://www.wcsj2009.org/ is currently being updated to contain more detail of sessions and speakers. Sign up for the RSS feed of our blog or follow our Co-Director Sallie Robins, on twitter (srPR), to get the latest news. 
'Research Councils UK invest £3billion each year in the UK research base. With international offices in four countries, we understand the importance and the challenges of communicating research in a global environment, and recognise the great opportunities an event like WCSJ can offer.'
Chloë Somers, Press Officer, Research Councils UK
'We're most excited about meeting such an global range of science journalists and learning more about their challenges and interests, especially those working in developing countries where the Research4Life programs, which offer free access to scientific research in those countries, are available. We'd love to hear more about how you cover development, health and science issues and see if there are ways we can work together. This is a great platform to have the opportunity to make new contacts and share information'.
Shira Tabachnikoff, Corporate Relations Director, Elsevier, leads the Research4Life PR team
We have a variety of workshops on Monday 29th June and the morning of Tuesday 30th June 2009, before the main WCSJ begins: Monday 29th June: "Reporting on Climate Change" (supported by UNESCO), "Food Technology and Food Security" (DFID and BBSRC), "Advances in Human Disease Genetics" and "Pitfalls of Reporting about Clinical Trials" (Wellcome Trust), and "Journalism Skills: Interview Technique and Pitching to Editors" (Imperial College London). Tuesday 30th June: "Quantum to Cosmos" (Perimeter Institute and the Canada Foundation for Innovation), "Green Energy Technologies" (European Joint Research Centre), "Informing Attitudes and Beliefs about Cancer" (European School of Oncology), "New Media Tools" (Knight Science Journalism Fellowships), and "Press officers and Journalists: Getting Global Coverage for Science" (STEMPRA). Full details about workshop themes and speakers will be available soon on our programme pages http://www.wcsj2009.org/programme_timetable.php
During the main WCSJ, there will also be expert tips on skills such as podcasting, and the challenges of setting up a Science Media Centre.
New theories and complex experiments are set to push our fundamental understanding of space, time, matter and information. Canada's Perimeter Institute is pleased to collaborate with WCSJ2009 on the special "Quantum to Cosmos Workshop" in which leading, international scientists will provide newsworthy insights on big ideas that have the power to reshape how we see and harness the world. Helping journalists to engage and excite the public about science has never been so important. The Canada Foundation for Innovation welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with WSCJ2009 in presenting workshops that will explore how this goal is being pursued by Science Media Centres in four different countries.
Bookings are open for post conference trips - a great chance to report on key advances in science and technology. When registering for the conference you can book onto a your chosen trip. Sign up now to guarantee your place. Unfortunately, due to costs certain trips may be cancelled without sufficient bookings. If you have already booked your delegate place at the Conference, the organisers will be in touch shortly to confirm your choices. So make sure you have booked up for the trip of your choice and make the most of your visit to the UK.
The Conference relies on support from its funders and sponsors to ensure its success.
If your organisation is interested in playing a key part, please visit the Sponsorship page on our website for more information.
NPG is immensely proud of Nature, its flagship journal and is pleased to announce Nature’s participation in the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists in 2009 as an official marketing partner. Nature represents the very essence of high impact publishing, reaching out to a broad, but crucial audience of scientists, and is frequently referred to in the world’s press as the most reliable source of up-to-date scientific information available. The bioinformatics “Marketing to Life Scientists” study and the 2008 Webby Awards have bothnamed Nature the leader in scientific communication whether in print, or online. For more information please contact: press@nature.com. 
More than 350 journalists from around the world have applied for travel scholarships to attend WCSJ2009, including from Canada, USA, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Australia. Winners will be notified by the end of March. We would also like to thank our scholarship sponsors and Friends of the Conference for enabling us to offer this crucial support. If you have any queries about scholarships, please email scholarships@wcsj2009.org
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago proved an excellent forum to both promote and provide inspiration for WCSJ2009.
Through a press briefing and exhibition stand the WCSJ team brought news of the Conference to science journalists, scientists, industry and academia. Pallab Ghosh, President of the World Federation of Science Journalists and BBC Science Correspondent along with WCSJ2009 speakers Deborah Blum (USA), Nadia El-Awady (Egypt), Chris Russell (USA), and Akin Jimoh (Nigeria) addressed a packed room at our “Science Journalism in Crisis” session. Cris Russell, President of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing painted a very dire picture of the state of science journalism in the USA, with science supplements and science staff writers being cut right across the country. However the picture from Africa and the Arab World was far healthier with encouraging stats being presented on the steady increase in coverage of science by Nadia El-Awady, the past President of the Arab Association of Science Journalists. The briefing was covered by Nature and SciDev.Net and the long queue for questions and comments bodes well for a continuing lively debate on this issue at WCSJ2009 in London.
More information on all the thought provoking topics, sessions and speakers at WCSJ will be announced via these conference newsletter updates. To ensure that you are kept up to date with conference plans - and if you didn’t receive this email directly from us - make sure you sign up to our mailing list. You will then receive all future conference updates directly to your inbox! Please also feel free to forward this email to your colleagues.
We hope that you can take advantage of the Early Bird Booking discounts by registering now!
We look forward to seeing you in London,
WCSJ2009 Conference Steering Group |
| Conference Office: WCSJ2009 | Benchmark Communications | 14 Blandford Square | Newcastle upon Tyne | NE1 4HZ | UK T: +44 (0)191 241 4523 | F: +44 (0)191 245 3802 | E: info@wcsj2009.org | W: http://www.wcsj2009.org/ |
We wish to acknowledge the support of the following organisations who provided seed funding to help us in the early stages of development of the WCSJ2009:
Nature, The Royal Society, Wellcome Trust, World Federation of Science Journalists.
Thanks also to our partners who have provided a donation or grant in support of the WCSJ 2009:
Burroughs Wellcome Fund
And finally thanks to our sponsors:
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