EU funded MAITRE project: the professional communication training for food researchers
13 April 2011
Austria
The MAITRE kick-off meeting was held in Brussels on the 14th of April 2011. MAITRE is a European Commission initiative funded under the FP7 KBBE theme (Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy) that supports the interaction between science and media, which is a key element in the public opinion’s understanding of research issues and of citizens’ consensus on public spending for research.
The main objective of the project is to enhance the knowledge about food research, its objectives, issues, and results, in the general European public, by way of improving media skills of food researchers as well as food research stakeholders.
The initiative aims at transferring from journalists to researchers the translation process 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, they will be able to handle their input in communication in a more effective way. MAITRE therefore will generate a better understanding for the researchers on how media inform public opinion, what are the food research’s hot issues at stake today and how public opinion can influence research policy choices.
The project will run around 50 training seminars in several EU’s countries to be delivered by journalists and media experts to a target group of roughly 600 researchers from organisations involved in KBBE funded projects.
The MAITRE consortium is lead by Minerva Consulting and Communication, a public relations agency based in Brussels and specialised in the management and execution of communication and dissemination activities within research-related projects for EU, and sees the participation of three other partners.
Stichting European Journalism Centre (EJC), a pan European organisation set in The Netherlands with strong links to all national European associations and journalists boards, providing support to journalists European wide and fostering the exchange of experiences and activities at European level. Fundación AZTI-Tecnalia, a Spanish research centre specialised on issues related to research on food, seafood and nutrition and technological innovation in this field. European Association for Food Safety Aisbl (SAFE) is the international organization of scientific institutes and universities active in food safety related sciences, based in Belgium.
The main objective of the project is to enhance the knowledge about food research, its objectives, issues, and results, in the general European public, by way of improving media skills of food researchers as well as food research stakeholders.
The initiative aims at transferring from journalists to researchers the translation process 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, they will be able to handle their input in communication in a more effective way. MAITRE therefore will generate a better understanding for the researchers on how media inform public opinion, what are the food research’s hot issues at stake today and how public opinion can influence research policy choices.
The project will run around 50 training seminars in several EU’s countries to be delivered by journalists and media experts to a target group of roughly 600 researchers from organisations involved in KBBE funded projects.
The MAITRE consortium is lead by Minerva Consulting and Communication, a public relations agency based in Brussels and specialised in the management and execution of communication and dissemination activities within research-related projects for EU, and sees the participation of three other partners.
Stichting European Journalism Centre (EJC), a pan European organisation set in The Netherlands with strong links to all national European associations and journalists boards, providing support to journalists European wide and fostering the exchange of experiences and activities at European level. Fundación AZTI-Tecnalia, a Spanish research centre specialised on issues related to research on food, seafood and nutrition and technological innovation in this field. European Association for Food Safety Aisbl (SAFE) is the international organization of scientific institutes and universities active in food safety related sciences, based in Belgium.