Report from the European Particle Physics Communication Network
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CERN/SPC/1130 CERN/3455 Original: English 13 September 2019 ORGANISATION EUROPÉENNE POUR LA RECHERCHE NUCLÉAIRE CERN EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH Action to be taken Voting Procedure SCIENTIFIC POLICY COMMITTEE For information 315th Meeting - 23-24 September 2019 RESTRICTED COUNCIL EUROPEAN STRATEGY MATTERS For information - 194th Session 27 September 2019 REPORT FROM THE EUROPEAN PARTICLE PHYSICS COMMUNICATION NETWORK CERN/SPC/1130 1 CERN/3455 Report from the European Particle Physics Communication Network 1. Overview This document begins with a brief report on the work of CERN’s Education, Communications and Outreach (IR-ECO) group before moving on to reports of network activity by country. It covers the period from August 2018 to July 2019. 2. Status of the network Over the past year, the EPPCN Social Media and the EPPCN KT working groups joined forces for a social media campaign on the occasion of the International day of Women and Girls in Science (#WomenInScience). The EPPCN held its spring meeting in Granada alongside the Open Symposium for the update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Some members of the network met the European Strategy Update working group 5 on Education, Communication and Outreach. A communication plan for the Strategy Update has been designed by CERN with input from the network. Two EPPCN members started a review of the IR-REL Country pages to see how the visibility of Member and Associate Members States on new CERN’s website could be improved. Work is still ongoing. Regarding the representation of the Member States in the EPPCN, the positions for Belgium, Denmark and Hungary remain vacant. The network welcomed a new member representing Sweden. The EPPCN representatives for Finland and APPEC changed during this period. Country reports for the reference period have not been received from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary and Sweden. 2 CERN/SPC/1130 CERN/3455 3. Report on IR-ECO group activities Media report From August 2018 to July 2019, CERN was the subject of media coverage linked to physics results such as those published by ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. The biggest coverage was triggered by the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web, followed by Alessandro Strumia’s provocative presentation. Other events, such as Dark Matter Day, TEDxCERN, Science Gateway press briefing and the FCC Design report were also well covered. We continued to participate in several conferences: AAAS 2019 (February), with a keynote speech from our Director General and a session about future colliders. CERN was an academic partner in the organisation of the World Conference for Science Journalists in July 2019 in Lausanne and therefore organised specific visits to the Laboratory for journalists during the conference. The level of requests for media visits shows that CERN remains in the spotlight. During the period from August 2018 to July 2019, the Press Office welcomed more than 870 media professionals on site, representing over 400 media outlets. The press office is using the opportunity of Long Shutdown 2 to organise national media visits, namely group visits for print and radio press from all our Member and Associate Member States. Coverage of CERN in the media remains very high with an average of about 1000 press cuttings per week. Most of the coverage is neutral to positive. CERN/SPC/1130 3 CERN/3455 We continue to support CERN staff and users with media training sessions organised twice a year, in the autumn and the spring. Social media CERN continues to have a strong, well-respected presence on social media channels and is currently active on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. With more than one million mentions of CERN or the LHC on social media between August 2018 and July 2019, the graph below shows that the largest peak of almost 18 000 mentions was for the 30-year anniversary of the World Wide Web in March, followed by 17 000 reactions to theorist Alessandro Strumia’s provocative presentation. Other notable posts with around 10 000 mentions include the end of LHC run 2 in December, Dark Matter Day in October and two posts in June celebrating 100 years of the proton and the visit to CERN of the guitarist of the metal band, Slayer. This graph shows social media mentions of CERN or the LHC between August 2018 and July 2019 Attending Thinkercon in the US in November enabled CERN to network with the most successful science social media influencers in the world, and this led to collaborations with Katie Mack, Emily Calandrelli, Trace Dominguez, Viviane Laland, Dominic Walliman, Dianna Cowern, Tom Scott and Le Grand JD. Cultivating these relationships is helping to reach wider audiences on social media. In addition, influencer talks at CERN have helped develop social media ambassadors from within the CERN community. Social campaigns have included #WomenInScience, #CERNcorridors, #CERNeyes, #CERNCareer, #LGBTSTEMday, #CERNScienceGateway, #upgradingLHC to showcase work during Long Shutdown 2, the global #web30 campaign and #CERNOpenDays in preparation for this September’s event. The Laboratory has continued to hold Facebook Live events for Researchers’ Night, Dark Matter Day, Nuit de l’antimatière and underground in the ALICE and ATLAS caverns. CERN showcased its social media activities with presentations at the Quadriga conference in Germany and the Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures (PARI) workshop in the UK. The Laboratory has now verified its social media accounts and enhanced its social media strategy. Improved video content and branding and an increased emphasis on Instagram stories and on new techniques, including 360° videos and images, keep CERN content in line with current social media trends. Website Between August 2018 and July 2019, home.cern and press.cern had more than 9.8 million page views from more than 3 million users. On 5 November 2018, these two sites 4 CERN/SPC/1130 CERN/3455 merged into a newly designed and structured core website for the Organization – the result of a two-year project to update CERN’s digital portfolio. November saw the launch of the newly designed home.cern, with the homepage providing more content upfront, with a long scroll to appeal to mobile users. A new web tools website now provides improved guidance and templates for the 14 000 websites across CERN to benefit from Drupal 8 functionalities. In 2019, a websites taskforce was established to support the CERN community with Drupal migrations. CERN’s top-level domain “.cern” strategy has been finalised and was presented at the DotBrands conference in Spain. Publications The editorial team continues to review CERN publications, including the Annual Report, brochures, CERN Courier and CERN Bulletin, to make print distribution more targeted and cost effective, and to maximise digital communications. CERN and its CERN Courier publishing partner, the UK-based Institute of Physics Publishing, worked together in 2018 to improve the magazine’s online presence, visual identity and editorial scope. In January 2019, a redesigned six-issues-a-year magazine launched alongside a series of supplements as part of the magazine’s 60th year. After an interim website launched in July 2018, work began on an improved web presence. The new CERN Courier website launched on 1 August 2019, alongside a new @CERNCourier Twitter channel. The publication will now shift to a digital-first model reporting on international high-energy physics online in real time. As the CERN Courier turns 60, 2019 began with a new visual identity and editorial scope for the six-issues-a- year magazine and a shift to a digital-first publishing model. CERN/SPC/1130 5 CERN/3455 CERN is mandated by its Convention to produce an annual report. To help the report to be as useful as possible to Member and Associate Member States and other stakeholders, a survey accompanied the 2018 report and its findings will feed into the future production. The changes to home.cern have improved links between the website and the CERN Bulletin, and discussions are ongoing to review its print distribution and improve digital newsletter functionalities. The upcoming Open Days have provided an opportunity to update posters and brochures and to harmonise content with home.cern and this will continue into 2020. Travelling exhibitions In early 2019, the ‘Accelerating Science’ travelling exhibition went to India, where it is being shown in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Delhi between May 2019 and March 2020. It is a jointly-funded effort by CERN, the Indian Departments of Atomic Energy (DAE) and of Science & Technology (DST). The LHC interactive tunnel was hosted in Germany (MPI Physics Munich), the Netherlands (Radboud University), Switzerland (ECSITE Geneva), Saudi Arabia (KAUST, Jeddah), Cyprus (Nikosia) and the UK (Liverpool University). The tunnel is a digital visualisation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with interactive sensors that let visitors immerse themselves in CERN’s scientific world and explore complex physics in an easily understandable way. CERN Google Arts and Culture In 2018, CERN started a partnership with Google’s Arts and Culture division on the “Once Upon a Try” project. The project involves other big organisations, such as NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, and creates collections of videos and images dedicated to honouring science and human discovery. All collections are available online or with dedicated apps. CERN contributed several “exhibits”, e.g. telling the story of the discovery of the Higgs boson, the invention of the World Wide Web, and contemporary experiments at CERN studying antimatter. A highlight is the augmented reality app called “Big Bang AR”, available on iOS and Android platforms. It takes users on an interactive cosmic tour to the beginning of the universe, 13.8 billion years ago, and shows how particles, atoms, stars and planets formed, giving our universe the shape we know today.