“How can young researchers better get through to the public?”

Rowan Hooper, Creative Director at New Scientist Live and Managing Editor of New Scientist, shares his experience in science journalism with Early Career Researchers from King College London and University College London.

We’re at New Scientist Live 2017 and we’ve asked Creative Director, Rowan Hooper about how Science Communication degrees can help young researchers to better communicate their science, and what they should do to start talking about their science.

“Masters degree courses tell you how to go about getting published. You can also do work experience, and we at the New Scientist get a lot of students from Imperial College and City. They meet the editors and learn what to do if they have got a story, and what sort of stories we want.

The researchers ask Rowan, “How do you get started?”

“The advice to how to make that move is just to start writing and publish your stuff on your blog. Think about how what you are doing is going to distinguish you from the mass of stuff that is out there. What you’re doing in your lab might not have massive broad appeal, but it will be something different that no one else can write about! It’s a saturated field, but you need to start somewhere: it’s little steps to start off.”