Researchers’ road to international media

Well, SDU’s new collaboration with the organisation The Conversation can provide you with a truly solid foundation and hands-on help in order to achieve your goals.

In short, The Conversation is a kind of Reuters Bureau - just for researchers. The website www.theconversation.com focuses on collaboration between researchers and journalists under the heading “Academic rigour, journalistic flair” and has existed since 2010, when it was established in Australia by journalists and researchers from Australian universities.

The Conversation is an independent, non-profit organisation funded by universities, the research sector, governments and private interests. All content is published under the so-called Creative Commons License, and The Conversation currently has six editions respectively in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Africa, France, as well as a global edition. SDU's space on the website is located under “United Kingdom,” where we are together with English and Irish universities. SDU is also, with the Swedish university in Lund, one of the first European continental universities on The Conversation.

See SDU’s part of The Conversation here. However, note that the site is in its preliminary stages and is far from finished, but the first 19 SDU researchers have, in fact, already jumped the gun before SDU has established an official collaboration.

In 2016-2017, The Conversation had 104 million readers worldwide. At present, the English site, which SDU belongs to, has 1.3 million visits per month and 8 million page views incl. re-publications. Thousands of media around the world are searching The Conversation every day to find stories. TV stations, news sites and print media such as BBC, The Washington Post, Le Monde and the New York Times. Here, research reaches a larger audience and more researchers at The Conversation have achieved a readership in the millions, taken part in TV interviews across several continents and have achieved a serious and sober expert status.

How do you get on?

You must be a researcher at SDU and write good English. You have something important at heart that you would like to share. And you’re keen on writing to a group of people who are far broader than your academic peers.

You get help from The Conversation’s editors. They are geared up and ready online to help you sharpen your focus and possibly give you a hand with the linguistic aspect of it.

Intro arrangement in early December

On 10 and 11 December, The Conversation will be visiting SDU, where we will be holding 2 intro days. Both days have the same programme, so you have two possible dates to choose from. The content of the intro day will be a general introduction to The Conversation - as well as your opportunity to have a one on-one meeting with an editor where you can, for example, take your current research work and get a specific assessment on the possibility of having it published on The Conversation.

Corporate Communication is currently setting up an information site at sdu.dk and more information will be available soon.