Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Last updated

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft e.V. or idw (The Science Information Service) operates an Internet platform, which bundles the press reports and dates of important events from about 1,000 scientific institutions, including universities, technical colleges, governmental and non-governmental research institutes and institutes to support research or scientific administration. idw (a registered charitable society) also operates an expert broker, the idw expert finder, which is exclusively for journalists. This makes idw one of the most comprehensive sources of science news in the German-speaking area. Foreign journalists and institutions (mostly European) use idw as well.

Contents

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft e.v. New idw-logo.png
Informationsdienst Wissenschaft e.v.

The two main objectives of idw are:

Services

The information in idw can be accessed free of charge - either directly on idw’s www pages, or by using an individually configurable RSS feed or as an e-mail subscriber. Any user can request the information covering the topics and regions which interest him. All idw services can be used free of cost - the current news ticker, the news app, the science calendar, research in the archive (which contains more than 460,000 press releases), and the list of institutions linked to idw. idw also provides journalists with instruments for contacting experts, and maintains a database with science photos. The members' press offices have various possibilities of communicating with journalists. Membership is only offered to German or foreign institutions which perform research or teaching, or which support science or are active in science in some other way.

In November 2022, idw opened a Mastodon instance, wisskomm.social, [1] named after science communication (Wissenschaftskommunikation).

Idea and Foundation

The original idea of idw was to provide experts for journalists. Using the American ProfNet as example, [2] the press officers of Universitaet Bayreuth, the Ruhr University Bochum and the Clausthal University of Technology, in collaboration with Computing Centre of Clausthal University of Technology/TU Clausthal, developed a concept for a German language network, by means of the new media. The concept was technically implemented by the staff of the Computing Centre of the Clausthal University of Technology. A total of nine staff members in Bayreuth, Bochum and Clausthal are responsible for programming, maintaining and developing the idw operating system, for user services and further development of the content.

Financial Support and Development

The initial phase (1996–1999) was guaranteed by project support from the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). The technical development of the idw was supported by the Ministry, together with the Stifterverband fuer die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Donor Association for German Science). idw has been working for years with the initiative Wissenschaft im Dialog (Science in Dialogue). idw has been economically independent since 2000 and is financed by contributions from member institutions. It has been organised as a registered charitable society (gemeinnütziger e. V.) since 2002. As part of its quality control, since 2009 idw awards the annual idw Award for Science Communication for the best year's best press releases. [3] [4]

Significance and Scope

idw has developed as a recognised and accepted source for German language science and for science journalism. It has become an instrument for public relations work for scientific institutions. More than 44,000 subscribers (figure for July 2024 [5] ) receive regular reports from idw, including 9,500 journalists. More than 1,000 institutions publish their press reports and dates of important events via idw.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autonomous University of Barcelona</span> Public university in Catalonia, Spain

The Autonomous University of Barcelona is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technische Universität Darmstadt</span> Public university in Darmstadt, Germany

The Technische Universität Darmstadt, commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1877 and received the right to award doctorates in 1899. In 1882, it was the first university in the world to set up a chair in electrical engineering. In 1883, the university founded the first faculty of electrical engineering and introduced the world's first degree course in electrical engineering. In 2004, it became the first German university to be declared as an autonomous university. TU Darmstadt has assumed a pioneering role in Germany. Computer science, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, business informatics, political science and many more courses were introduced as scientific disciplines in Germany by Darmstadt faculty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Erlangen–Nuremberg</span> Public research university in Bavaria, Germany

The University of Erlangen–Nuremberg is a public research university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. The name Friedrich–Alexander is derived the university's first founder Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, and its benefactor Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

The Science Media Centre is a charitable company, first formed in 2002, two years after the United Kingdom House of Lords Select committee on Science and Technology's third report on "Science and Society" in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technical University of Dortmund</span> University in Dortmund, Germany

TU Dortmund University is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's and master's degree programs. It is situated in the Ruhr area, the fourth largest urban area in Europe. The university pioneered the Internet in Germany, and contributed to machine learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wan Gang</span> Chinese retired politician

Wan Gang is a Chinese expert on automobiles and retired politician, who served as the minister of science and technology from 2007 to 2018. The chairman of the China Zhi Gong Party, Wan was one of the few non-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ministers in China's State Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Computing Centre</span>

The University Computing Centre in Zagreb has a long tradition in the area of information and communication technologies. It was founded in 1971 within the University of Zagreb, the only Croatian university at the time, with the purpose to enhance the implementation of information technologies in the academic community as well as in Croatia in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siberian Federal University</span> University in Russia

Siberian Federal University is a multidisciplinary university located in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, that combines fundamental and applied research and teaching. The Siberian Federal University was ranked # 1,589 in the world in 2023 by US News & World Report.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oles Honchar Dnipro National University</span> Public university in Dnipro, Ukraine

Oles Honchar Dnipro National University is a public higher education institution located in Dnipro, Ukraine. It was founded in 1918. The first four faculties were History and Linguistics, Law, Medicine, and Physics and Mathematics.

Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the central notion is transformation of information. In some cases, the term "informatics" may also be used with different meanings, e.g. in the context of social computing, or in context of library science.

The online portal Greenpilot is a service provided by the German National Library of Medicine, ZB MED.

Hans Joachim Markowitsch is a physiological psychologist and neuropsychologist whose work centers on brain correlates of memory and memory disorders, stress, emotion, empathy, theory of mind, violent and anti-social behavior and consciousness.

Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft – or Stifterverband for short – is a registered not-for-profit association that is based in Essen and which also has a capital city office in Berlin. Its work is focused on education, science and innovation. The Stifterverband organisation analyses, advises, supports and networks science and business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Faulstich</span> German research scientist

Martin Faulstich is a German research scientist. He is a professor at the Clausthal University of Technology, chairman of the German Advisory Council on the Environment and the managing director of the Clausthal Institute of Environmental Technology (CUTEC) in Clausthal-Zellerfeld.

The German Ceramic Society is an association founded in 1919 and headquartered in the city of Cologne, Germany. With its more than 600 personal and 250 institutional members, it is the largest ceramics society in Europe. Worldwide, it is one of the oldest associations in this field.

Jacek Antoni Błażewicz is a Polish computer scientist specializing in the theory of algorithms and bioinformatics. He has been working as Director of the Institute of Computer Sciences of the Poznań University of Technology. He is also Head of the Department of Bioinformatics at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technische Hochschule Georg Agricola</span>

The Technische Hochschule Georg Agricola is a state-accredited, private university of applied sciences based in Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1816 as a Bergschule to train mining officials and mining foremen (Steiger) and, in the 20th century, grew into an engineering college and later a university. It has borne the name of the polymath and mining pioneer Georgius Agricola since 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department of Computer Science of TU Darmstadt</span> Department of Computer Science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt

The Department of Computer Science is a department of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. With a total of 36 professorships and about 3,700 students in 12 study courses, the Department of Computer Science is the largest department of the university. The department shapes the two research profile areas "Cybersecurity (CYSEC)" and "Internet and Digitization (InDi)" of the university.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carsten Könneker</span> German science communicator

Carsten Könneker is a German science journalist and science communication researcher. From 2010 to 2019, he was editor-in-chief of Spektrum der Wissenschaft, the German edition of Scientific American. From 2012 to 2018, he was professor of science communication and science studies at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and founding director of the German National Institute for Science Communication, Karlsruhe. From 2019 to 2022, he was one of the managing directors of the Klaus Tschira Foundation.

References

  1. "Datenschutzbestimmungen" (in German).
  2. "Heisser Draht zur Forschung". Der Spiegel . 19 June 2001. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  3. idw Award website
  4. Interview (German language) on Wissenschaftskommunikation.de. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  5. "Idw - Information about the idw".