AWI Communications and Media Relations Department Wins the idw Prize for Science Communication

The press release “A sensational discovery: Traces of rainforests in West Antarctica”, produced by the AWI’s Communications and Media Relations department, took home first place in the competition. Josef Zens, Managerial Board Member at the idw, gave the awards speech: “There’s also been a small sensation in this competition: for the third year in a row, the AWI’s Communications and Media Relations department is among the finalists. It came in third last year and the year before that, and now first place! As you can see, quality is no coincidence.” No other contender has enjoyed such a string of successes with the idw Prize – especially since there are new jury members to win over every year.

The AWI press release tied for first place in the category “quality” and took top honours in the categories “originality” and “relevance”.

Jury member Katharina Menne (ZEIT) was full of praise: “There are plenty of things this press release gets right; maybe even everything: the headline piques your curiosity, the content is relevant, the language is accessible, and the scientific aspects are clearly explained. It serves well both as a motivation for readers to do their own research on the topic, and as a template for short news items. The structure is sufficiently complex without feeling packed with too much content. The accompanying images are good, though they could have been tailored a bit more specifically to the content covered. The researchers are clearly listed, together with their contact information.” Even if the text on such a sensational discovery ‘practically writes itself’, as some might claim, in Menne’s words it is “nevertheless a challenge to successfully convey both the verified findings and the remaining question marks. The text does so exceptionally well, without laying it on too thick, engaging in speculation or being intentionally vague.”

The winner receives 2,000 euros in prize money and a plaque designed for public display, a lasting testimony to their success.

Second and third place went to the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Bavarian Natural History Collections(Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns (SNSB)), respectively. Zens summed up this year’s competition: “The quality was once again very high, which means the jury had a tough choice to make.” And plenty of texts to review: 85 communications departments from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy took part. On behalf of the Managerial Board, Zens thanked the jury for their valuable, unpaid work. Every member of the jury was eligible to nominate three press releases. Four were nominated by more than one member, as a result of which eleven made it to the final round of selection.