Nature Marsilius Visiting ProfessorshipLecture: Why Critical Reporting about Science is so Important
Press Release No. 1/2024
10 January 2024
Event in the context of the Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication
The responsibility of a journalist to investigate and report on the “shadier sides” of academia is the topic of a public lecture in the context of the Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication. The speaker is Martin Enserink, a Dutch science journalist and deputy news editor at “Science”. In the 2023/2024 winter semester he holds the visiting professorship, which is a joint initiative of Holtzbrinck Berlin, the Klaus Tschira Foundation and Heidelberg University. The trained biologist will, among other things, talk about questionable research practices and personal misconduct. The lecture, in English and entitled “Cheerleaders, guides, or watchdogs? The importance of critical science journalism”, will take place on Tuesday, 16 January 2024, in the Great Hall of the Old University, starting at 7 pm.
Science journalists, says Martin Enserink, sit “in the first row” when it comes to current, exciting discoveries of researchers. With their stories on these topics they can inform, inspire, educate and entertain their readership. At the same time, however, there is also a societal need for science journalists to report critically and independently about the darker sides of the science business, such as careless research practices, fraud, plagiarism or inappropriate behaviour towards colleagues. Uncovering such shortcomings and errors can contribute to regaining lost confidence in science, the current holder of the Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication underlines.
After graduating in biology at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) Martin Enserink embarked on a career as a journalist. Since 1999 he has been working for “Science” magazine, initially at its headquarters in Washington D.C. (USA), and then as a correspondent and news editor in Paris (France). Today the deputy news editor at “Science” lives in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Martin Enserink’s main areas of interest include global health, infectious diseases, research ethics, scientific misconduct and research financing.
The Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication is a joint initiative of Holtzbrinck Berlin, the Klaus Tschira Foundation and Heidelberg University. The professorship involves inviting well-known experts to the university to hold their own courses at the Marsilius Kolleg on what makes for quality reporting about scholarly research and scientific findings. At the same time, the visiting professors are expected to spark a broad-based discussion about new forms of exchange between academia and the public. Previous holders of the visiting professorship include, most recently, Ionica Smeets, Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim and Michele Catanzaro.
