Do you work in communications at a scientific academy? Does your job require you to organise events, liaise with press, update websites and manage social media? Do you struggle with the resources and skills you would need to support your Academy in achieving its mission?
You are not alone!
As professionals working on communications at scientific academies across Europe, we face challenges in our work. How do we best engage with our audiences? What tools can help us connect research to policy? When it comes to complex topics, what good practices do we need to keep in mind?
SAPEA brings together expertise from over 120 academies, young academies and learned societies in more than 40 countries across Europe. These organisations vary greatly in their scale and context, each facing their own particular challenges, but there are also many common challenges that each unit faces. By sharing our experiences, we can inspire and learn from each other, network together and integrate good practices into our daily work.
These events are co-organised by SAPEA and ALLEA, and they are aimed at anyone working on communications for a scientific academy, young academy or learned society from across Europe. Both events will be held in English and they are free of charge to the communications staff of European academies.
Online meeting, 30 June 2023
On 30 June, 30 professionals working on communications at scientific academies attended a first workshop online where we discussed some of the challenges we face and ways we could address them collectively. These outcomes will feed into a training workshop in October 2023 where we will work to develop the relevant skills and capacities, exploring experiences and good practices from across Europe and building the basis for a stronger European community of communications professionals across scientific academies. You can download a document summarising the outcomes of the meeting: Outcomes
In-person meeting, 17–18 October 2023
Schedule
Date and time: 17 October (13:00 CEST) until 18 October (12:30 CEST)
Location: Warsaw, Poland
This in-person meeting will last two half-days. It will be kindly hosted by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
At this meeting, we will dig deeper into the challenges, hear about good practices from our peers, and work on the skills and capacities we need to address these issues.
The process will be structured and facilitated to ensure a lively and dynamic workshop with plenty of time to connect and exchange with peers from academies across Europe.
Day 1, starting at 13:00
- Networking lunch
- Welcome and ice breaker
- Parallel workshops on tools and platforms. You can attend any two of the following three:
- Video: how can academies make use of short videos to reach a wide range of audiences via social media?
- Podcasting: exploring the podcast as a tool to go into depth on a range of topics in research
- Social media: how can we use various platforms to broaden our impact?
- Discussion tables
- Visit to Copernicus Science Centre
- Networking dinner
Day 2, 09:00 to 12:00
- Welcome and warm-up
- Identifying our audiences
- Common challenges: an in-depth group exploration
- Towards a European community on communications for academies
Who can attend?
You are welcome to take part in both meetings free of charge if you are responsible for (or mainly work on) the communications and outreach activities of either of the following:
- One of SAPEA’s networks (Academia Europaea, ALLEA, Euro-CASE, FEAM, YASAS), or EASAC
- Any academy that is a member of at least one of those networks
Please note that these meetings are not intended for senior academic representatives (e.g. international secretaries, presidents).
If more than one person from your academy or network would like to attend, each person should fill in this form separately.
Sign up now
In general, the academy or network that employs you is responsible for arranging and paying for your transport and accommodation for the meeting in Warsaw. However, we understand that the financial situation of some academies would make it difficult or impossible for their staff to attend. For this reason, we have set aside some funds to help offset the costs of travel and accommodation for those academies. In the case of high demand, priority will be given to academies from EU Widening countries, non-EU associated and accession countries. If you would like to apply for this financial assistance, please indicate this on the sign-up form.
Submitting this form does not automatically guarantee you a place. If we receive many more responses than we expect, we reserve the right to limit places. Please do not make final travel and accommodation plans until you have received confirmation from SAPEA that your place is booked.
