MAITRE

Media Actions for International Training of REsearchers

Coordinatore	MINERVA CONSULTING & COMMUNICATION    more  Organization address address: Av. de Tervuren 32-34 city: BRUSSELS postcode: 1040 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Hinano Cognome: Spreafico Email: send email Telefono: 32025441888 Fax: 32025345561
Nazionalità Coordinatore	Belgium [BE]
Sito del progetto	http://www.maitreproject.eu
Totale costo	1˙080˙460 €
EC contributo	908˙251 €
Programma	FP7-KBBE Specific Programme "Cooperation": Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology
Code Call	FP7-KBBE-2010-4
Funding Scheme	CSA-SA
Anno di inizio	2011
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2011-04-01   -   2014-03-31

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	MINERVA CONSULTING & COMMUNICATION  Organization address address: Av. de Tervuren 32-34 city: BRUSSELS postcode: 1040 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Hinano Cognome: Spreafico Email: send email Telefono: 32025441888 Fax: 32025345561	BE (BRUSSELS)	coordinator	197˙843.00
2	STICHTING EUROPEAN JOURNALISM CENTRE  Organization address address: AVENUE CERAMIQUE 50 city: MAASTRICHT postcode: 6221 KV contact info Titolo: Mr. Nome: Eric Cognome: Karstens Email: send email Telefono: 31433254030 Fax: 31433212626	NL (MAASTRICHT)	participant	563˙841.85
3	FUNDACION AZTI/AZTI FUNDAZIOA  Organization address address: Txatxarramendi Ugartea z/g city: SUKARRIETA (BIZKAIA) postcode: 48395 contact info Titolo: Mrs. Nome: Begoña Cognome: Pérez Villarreal Email: send email Telefono: 34946574000 Fax: 34946572555	ES (SUKARRIETA (BIZKAIA))	participant	93˙226.65
4	EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR FOOD SAFETY AISBL  Organization address address: AVENUE LOUISE 475475 Box15 city: BRUXELLES postcode: 1050 contact info Titolo: Dr. Nome: Harmen Cognome: Hofstra Email: send email Telefono: +32 2502 0939 Fax: +32 2626 0805	BE (BRUXELLES)	participant	53˙339.50

Mappa

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The interaction between science and the media is a key element in the public opinion’s understanding of research issues and of citizens’ consensus on public spending for research. Food research issues have been recently at the heart of heated debates and often subject to misrepresentations partially due to over-simplification by the media or to insufficient involvement of scientists in communication to the large public. This is a bottleneck that still hinders citizens’ comprehension of major scientific themes currently discussed at European or national level. The MAITRE project intends to act on researchers’ readiness to manage communication processes oriented to the large public. The rationale is to transfer from the journalists to the researchers parts of the translation process that is needed to bring scientific information from the laboratories to the common people. If scientists gain a full understanding of the information production processes in today’s media (newspapers, tv, web, etc.), they will be able to handle their input in communication in a more effective way, combining soundness of scientific information with the necessary level of clarity adapted to the needs of the general public. The project will revolve around a cycle of training sessions to be delivered by journalists and media experts to a target group of roughly 600 researchers from organisations involved in KBBE funded projects. Trainings will be organised in several countries and in different languages, paying attention to ensure a wide coverage of the EU, including countries of the enlarged Europe and of different sub-themes addressed by the KBBE programme. The project has potential to considerably step up researchers’ capacity to explain the scope and results of their activities, thus contributing to bring science closer to the citizens and these to a better understanding of why the integration of European research resources is beneficial to the whole European society.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Scientists work on important public issues that should be covered in the media. An EU project is training scientists to more productively engage with the media.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Nutrition and food science issues increasingly affect public debates. The scientists who did the research are clearly best equipped to explain it, while the media has an important role to play in disseminating the information.

Often, however, the complex subject material and short news segment lengths combine to cause over-simplification and misrepresentation. Scientists thus sometimes find the media process unsatisfactory.

Helping to resolve the conflict is the 'Media actions for international training of researchers' (http://www.maitreproject.eu/ (MAITRE)) project. The 4-member project commenced in April 2011 and finished in March 2013. The project concept was essentially a media skills training programme for scientists. The project equipped researchers with the skills necessary to interact with the media about food science topics, and was structured across four phases.

MAITRE first focused on creating plans for dissemination. In the project's initial months, it developed materials aimed at promoting its existence in order to attract participants. Foremost was the project website. It functions as a dissemination tool, as a medium between journalists and researchers, and as an information repository for training materials and subject-specific literature.

The project identified media best practices as indicators for training. It established a methodological framework for selecting training activities, and a similar framework for the scientists' selection. The project also identified several priority food science topics, which were incorporated into the training and seminar programmes. The training programme consisted of initial development followed by implementation. The project hosted 14 seminars in its first 18 months.

MAITRE also assessed its progress, in terms of impact on beneficiaries and achievement of project aims. It developed two different forms, seeking feedback from researchers immediately after the seminars and then six to eight months later. The feedback was used to improve the seminars.

The project's legacy will be a pool of food science researchers trained in media skills. They will be better equipped to work with the media to communicate their important work to the widest possible audience. This will promote greater public engagement with the research fields.