Greetings

A few things that may be of interest.

1. Nominations for the Victoria prizes
2. a science media service, and
3. a snapshot of science in the mainstream media.

Regards


Bradley Smith
Executive Director
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
FASTS
LPO Box 8283 ANU
ACTON ACT 2601
ph: 02 6257 2891
fax: 02 6257 2897
Mobile: 0408 511 261
E-mail: fasts@anu.edu.au
www.fasts.org


1. NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR 2007 VICTORIA PRIZE AND FELLOWSHIPS

Nominations for the Victoria Prize and Victoria Fellowships have opened.

The awards are worth more than $250,000 and are part of the Victorian Government’s commitment “to support and foster excellence in science, technology and engineering and complement the Science, Technology and Innovation Initiative.”

The $50,000 Victoria Prize recognises a scientist or engineer whose groundbreaking discovery or technological innovation has significantly advanced knowledge or has the clear potential to produce a commercial outcome or other benefit to the community.

The research institute supporting the work of the Victoria Prize recipient will again be recognised with the $100,000 Anne & Eric Smorgon Memorial Award, presented by the Jack and Robert Smorgon Families Foundation.

Past Victoria Prize winners include:

• David Solomon, for his research into polymer technology including the development of the world's first plastic bank note, which was introduced in Australia in 1988 and is now used in 22 countries;
• David Vaux, for his pioneering efforts in understanding apoptosis, or programmed cell death;
• Keith Nugent, whose seminal work has changed the way we see and measure images through light; and
• Eric Reynolds, for his groundbreaking research into oral health and the prevention of tooth decay.

As well as the Victoria Prize, up to six $18,000 Victoria Fellowships are awarded to early career researchers to help them travel overseas and further their research, expand international networks, develop a commercial idea or undertake specialist training.

Applications are open to any young researcher working in private enterprise or a research institution.

Victoria Fellows planning a study mission in France will be eligible to apply for the $5,000 AFAS FEAST-France Fellowships, offered by the Australian French Association for Science and Technology (Victoria) and the Embassy of France.

Nominations and applications close on 10 April 2007 with winners publicly announced in August. Application and nomination forms are available from www.business.vic.gov <http://www.business.vic.gov/> .au/vicprize

2. Science Media daily Parliamentary news service.

Are your members interested in the sciences, technology, innovation, education or the environment? If so, they might like to trial a daily service from the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Science Media provides a daily email bulletin with hot links to announcements by Members of Parliament, Commonwealth agencies, lobby groups and other organisations.

There is no commentary and no advertising; only short sharp summaries with direct links to the online primary documents. The service is now in its second year and subscribers include: Deans of Science, public servants, researchers, science communicators, specialist advisers and professional organisations.

Individuals or organisations may sample the service by registering for a free one-month trial. If they find it of value a one-year individual subscription will cost $275 (incl. GST). Discounted rates are available for multiple subscriptions.

To take the free trial or ask for more information, please email: sciencemedia@incanberra.com.au

The Directors of Science Media are Simon Grose and Peter Quiddington. Simon is a freelance journalist who has been S&T Editor of The Canberra Times since 1994. He is also a contributor to Australasian Science and Nature Medicine.

Peter is a policy analyst, editor and publisher currently completing doctoral studies in higher education policy.

3. What science is in the mainstream media?

The Australian Science media centre have distributed a report from media monitors comparing the coverage of scientific research and policy in the 3 month period ending October 2006 with the corresponding period in 2005.

The report only uses 12 key words such as water, climate change, cloning, stem cells but does show a significant overall jump from 3,800 items for the key words in 2005 to 10,300 items in 2006.

Water increased from 124 to 2076 articles, climate from 561 to 1939 and nuclear 395 to 1157. Bird flu, on the other hand, fell from 1534 to 230.

In terms of ‘market share’ bird flu dropped from a staggering 40.3% to 2.2% whereas in 2006 the main areas were cloning 22.2%, stem cell research 21.8%, water resources, 20.2% and climate 18.7%.

I wouldn’t want to over determine any of this but a couple of observations:

• The increase in volume highlight that odd space we are in at the moment whereby science is completely pervasive but remains – in a policy sense - almost invisible, and
• It is the politics that drives stories not the intrinsic importance or interest of the science per se.

More info can be found at http://www.aussmc.org/A_recent_snapshot.php