Are you a full-time journalist?
Do you work for German-language media in Germany, Austria or Switzerland?
Would you regularly like to make use of scientific expertise as part of your research?
Would you like to receive the Science Media Center Germany’s expert statements and fact sheets in German?
If so, please complete this online accreditation form.
SMC’s products are offered free of charge. Registering with SMC is also free – it merely costs a few minutes of your time.
By the way: our experts do not pay and are not paid to be included on the SMC database or for delivering their expertise.
SMC is a non-profit organisation financed with the help of seed funding from the Klaus Tschira Foundation. Currently, a circle of additional sponsors in science, business and society is being built up to finance SMC long term.
How and where can I find quick and reliable scientific expertise? Where do I search for experts who are not only qualified, but also willing and able to deliver statements at short notice? When debates get emotional, who can be relied on to come up with factual arguments and hard facts?
This is the challenge journalists like you face when the media have to decide how to rank scientific content in the context of current affairs, when breaking science news causes a public stir, or dramatic science-related events have to be evaluated immediately. Our portfolio seeks to enrich and enhance reporting on sensitive and complex topics.
It is almost impossible to break a path through the jungle of science’s publications, information sources, thematic areas and terminology. This is where the Science Media Center Germany acts as a competent guide.
We launch into action when socially-relevant public issues emerge and when we can assume that the expertise we collect and distribute will provide added value for journalists and be used on a broad scale.
The information SMC distributes can be used by radio and tv journalists just like any other research material: You will receive background information and detailed knowledge, cues as to which aspects of a topic are relevant and where you can continue your own research. And you will discover which experts have already commented on a certain topic and might therefore be prepared to give you an interview.
SMC’s expert database is composed of specialists from various fields of medicine and the life sciences, environment and climate, energy and technology. They are supplemented by humanities, social science and cultural studies scholars who address SMC topics in their research. We are particularly interested in topics that are not only relevant to the science community but to the public and society as well – that is, public issues.
The experts on our database are mostly researchers, but also other eminent experts, that is, people who originally conducted research themselves but now work for specialist authorities or who have acquired serious expertise in a special field over a long period of time.
When approached by SMC, all the experts on our database agreed to help make scientific expertise more transparent for journalists as well as readers, listeners and viewers.
Very important: These experts do not pay and are not paid to be included on the database. They have something to say and they are interested in journalism. They are courageous scientists who believe just as firmly as we do at SMC in the basic right to scientific freedom.
Unfortunately not. This kind of agency work is not part of SMC’s remit. We make the same offers to all registered journalists and editorial offices, and we also select our experts on the basis of their specialist knowledge.
If you have any other questions that have not been answered on this website, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.