Some stars are born
Yesterday, as some of you will know, I launched my second annual report as the Agency’s Chief Scientist – at the BA Festival for the Advancement of Science in Liverpool. It was great to see the enthusiasm of a live audience responding to our presentation – and I was delighted that a further 500 people joined in online, voting and emailing questions. The event included presentations by some of the Agency’s scientists as well as interactive events involving the live audience and those on the web.
In addition to myself and Agency colleagues on stage, we were joined by actors playing microbes and scientists, to reinforce some of our messages. For those who were not able to view the live event I, although slightly biased, recommend watching the video online.
Perhaps it was because this was an audience of well informed scientists, but it was reassuring that Agency messages about food safety and healthy eating appear to be getting through. Certainly, the live audience was very well informed about food safety and healthy eating issues. For example, about 50% would eat GM food and most indicated that they would be happy to eat irradiated food.
During the event there were lots of questions from the online audience and I am really grateful for your contributions. We're working out a way of responding to the questions we were unable to answer during the event.
This year was the first time that the Agency has participated in the BA Festival of Science. Our Chief Executive, Tim Smith, took part in the GM debate at the opening of the Festival and Gill Fine, FSA Director of Nutrition, took part in two events – a debate called ‘Fat of the land or land of the fat?’ and one entitled ‘What are you being served? How the science underpinning policy arrives on your plate’.The Agency’s Cooking Bus was also in Liverpool throughout the festival, so we do feel we made a significant effort to contribute to this celebration of science.
From my perspective, the launch of the annual report and other events was a great success, but, as always, we will consider the feedback to find out how effective communicating our work in this way has been. Do let me know what you think.
