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3. Oct. 2022
Ahoy! I’m Edwin Colyer and I’m delighted to be the first ever ERC-funded Science Journalism Fellow! It is an absolute honour to spend this October at CEITEC and Masaryk University to nose around your laboratories and sniff out the top stories about your research. I’ve been writing about science and reporting on its workings for 25 years. My first ever piece was in the UK’s No. 1 popular science magazine New Scientist back in 1998 – an op-ed from a fresh university graduate on why every scientist should study history of science.
Thanks to some mentoring from the magazine’s editor, I followed this short piece with several full-length features. Most important, however, was the credentials it gave to launch my freelance science writer career; I soon found myself writing about science and IT regularly for the Financial Times as well as less well known titles such as Fish Farming International.
My journalistic skills – and entrepreneurial spirit – have served me well over the years. I learned to follow the money, so gradually spent less time writing by-lined pieces for mainstream media. I built up a large portfolio of clients needing a specialist science communicator. I had the knack for turning complex concepts into compelling stories for non-experts. I’ve produced science copy and content for many universities, funders, the European Commission, SMEs and large international corporations.
My last and favourite project – before I began work as an Impact & Engagement Manager at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016 – was a special 125th anniversary publication for the prestigious Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. World-changing history, personal stories and impressive science all rolled into one!
And now the journalist is back!
I rejoined my business, Scientia Scripta,in July this year. I now have the freedom to try new things and re-establish myself as an independent science journalist. I’ve already got several national newspapers in the UK interested in my trip. I also intend to pitch internationally too, so the potential for exposure is huge.
But this is where I need your help! I have just one month to learn what I can about the most exciting, controversial, ground-breaking and innovative research happening in CEITEC and its partner universities. Please get in touch today, invite me to your lab and tell me about your discoveries!
As a journalist I need stories that sell. Viruses are definitely on the radar, for obvious reasons. Climate change provides a good angle to catch an editor’s eye. I know people who want more content about advanced and designer materials.
But any discovery that will make a reader say “Wow!” is good.
I particularly want to learn about your unpublished and planned work. Not that I’ll break embargoes, just that it is always good to have a scoop! Once a paper is published, it is old news and a much harder sell. So come and whisper in my ear and show me where you are heading. You never know, maybe a piece in New Scientist or Time magazine will give your career the same boost it did for me!
Contacts:
Edwin Colyer: edwin@scientiascripta.co.uk
Ester Jarour: ester.jarour@ceitec.muni.cz