Publish or Perish - Communication CRC Research Thursday April 22, 1999 11am - 12:30pm Cooperative Research Centre Association Conference Promendade 1st Floor, Sofitel Hotel, Melbourne. Science in the Pub presents its first session in a five-star pub! And without the odd beer! This is also the first session we have presented at a conference and although the science will be serious, it is sure to be lots of fun. Today we will be discussing whether popularising research is important to a CRC’s success. On the panel we have Professor Peter Cullen, Dr Gael Jennings and Ms Elizabeth Elenius with scintillating Science in the Pub compere, Dr Paul Willis, ABC Radio science broadcaster. Peter Cullen is the Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology. He took up this role from being Dean of Applied science at the University of Canberra. He is President of FASTS, the Federation of Australian Scientific & Technological Societies, and as such is a member of the Prime Ministers Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. He is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering. He is a Director of Landcare Australia Limited. He has been working in the area of land and water management for almost thirty years, and has made significant contributions as a research scientist, a research manager, a public communicator and a teacher. Today he will be addressing the issues involved in the developing his CRC’s communications strategy. Gael Jennings is a multi-award winning television science and medical journalist, radio broadcaster, communicator and consultant. Gael holds a PhD in Immunology (in the faculty of Medical Biology at Melbourne University) from the internationally recognized Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. She also holds a First Class Honours degree in Science and Psychology, winning 3 Exhibitions; and a Diploma of Education. After teaching science and mathematics at secondary school, and conducting medical research in the areas of Infertility, Infectious disease and Immunology, Gael moved to science and medical communication in 1986, becoming the first national television Science and Medical News reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She held this position for 3 years, before moving to science documentaries with the weekly ABC TV Science series ‘Quantum' as a reporter, for a further 3 years. She initiated the ABC's creation of a science Current Affairs television reporter, and acted in that position on national television for a further 4 years, winning 12 science, technology, health and medical journalism awards. In 1996, Gael moved to ABC radio, where she has hosted a daily 2-hour show for the last 3 years. Gael has just completed her first book on the History of Medicine, to be published in September 1999. Elizabeth Elenius is the manager of communications for the Australian Photonics CRC. Her communications career really began with her involvement in the conservation movement in the late 60s and 70s. She was Editor of the National Parks Journal and active in the successful campaigns to save the Colong Caves, now in Kanangra-Boyd National Park, from limestone mining, and the Boyd Plateau from clearfelling for pine plantations. To become more useful in the conservation cause, Elizabeth undertook a degree in Earth Sciences at Macquarie University, as a mature age student, graduating in 1979. She then was appointed Project Officer with the NSW Nature Conservation Council where she coordinated the Sydney-based campaign to save Terania Creek. Moving to Queensland in 1981, she began a career in university administration at the University of Queensland, becoming involved in the Union campaign. Elizabeth’s role has moved from administration, including communication, to a full-time position in communications. She has also been involved in the establishment of the CRC Association, assisting in the various campaigns to "save" the Program from various Treasury attempts to cut its funding and in formulating responses for the various reviews of the CRC Program. She produced the first edition of CRC "Good News Stories" required when the Coalition Government introduced its first draconian budget. And true to tradition, Gael and Elizabeth have submitted their Science in the Pub ‘abstracts’ in verse! From Gael, Do they come with a social hex? mad sellers gave us strangelove, small woody was a sperm old boris had a bolt-in-neck and tracey made us squirm. As jekyll, he was cuddly, as hyde he was a fright sumner miller asked 'why is this so'.. we should ask 'is this RIGHT?' are scientists all labcoat-clad all evil and all male? bespectacled, a-chink with tubes and quite beyond the pale? did none of them wear skirts and heels did none of them have sex were all of them quite dotty did they COME with a social hex? They created cars and planes, the net less pain and way less dyin' but no matter what they gave to us as icons, we won't buy-'em. It's time to change the image, recast hollywood starlets to smoulder sexy over bunsens make tech millions, flex the pecs. And close to home, our very own must take their place on stage and become the major players in the drama of our age Their lives are the real Hollywood the stakes they play are high their mysteries of consequence their triumphs, do or die No longer silence from the lab! no more the reticence! don't cross the t's and dot the i's just splurge with a sentence Of clarity and passion of risk, and chance, and luck of adrenalin pulsing in the veins of struggle, brains and pluck And then perhaps, just maybe instead of white-clad fool researchers will be real hot stuff. and science just might be ... cool!! And from Elizabeth, The Message Positive In nineteen hundred and ninety-one The first ten CRCs were won The "Clever Country" was the aim Scientific excellence the claim These first ten centres cooperative Were joined by another fifty five To stem the flow of Oz ideas Which left our BOP in arrears Bob Hawke set up a big new pot Of bucks to fund this pioneering lot Of scientists, engineers and business types In projects ranging from bulls to bytes. With centres won, they couldn’t relax The Treasury mounted annual attacks On Program funds and Centre budgets But were they the ones to sit in judgement? And what’s more, in years three and five Just as projects begin to thrive Our Centres all must face review — Continuation, or "adieu". Then came Myer, Mortimer and Mercer To review the Program, oh how we did curse ‘er (it should be "them", but it didn’t rhyme) For having to defend our Centres time after time. Each new minister, another whim To cut and slash, the lights to dim First Crean, Free, Chris Schacht and Cook Then McGauran, Moore and Minchin took a look But did we flinch, did we fail? Did we weep or did we wail? No, the secret of our successes Was communication in excesses Each CRC communicator Campaigned from Antarctic to Equator Sent stories to every politician Reporter, publican, beautician Bombarded them with stories positive Not for us the message negative We quantified the bottom line And benefit to Australia every time So here’s to us, communicators all It’s been exciting, we’ve had a ball United we have won the day - With a little help from science along the way   Science in the Pub is an initiative of the Australian Science Communicators (NSW). Why not join us? It is staged as a regular feature for Sydney clients from 7.00—9.00 pm on the last Wednesday of the month (Feb — Nov) in the Duke of Edinburgh Pub (sometimes known as the Harlequin Bar) in Pyrmont. It has received two grants from the Science and Technology Awareness Program (an initiative of the Department of Industry, Science, Tourism), the most recent of which is to be used to support Science in the Pub sessions during National Science Week 1999 in Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne. You can find out more about Science in the Pub or the Australian Science Communicators by either contacting Robyn Stutchbury on rstutch@ozemail.com.au of Peripatus Productions Pty Limited, 1 Carisbrook Street, Lane Cove 2066, Tel: 02 9427 6747, Fax: 02 9418 9605
Science in the Pub™, © 2000. Stutchbury, R, Burton, M.