Academy’s work reaches millions of people

The Academy has always worked hard to engage the public through appropriate media work. The diversity of talent amongst our Fellows and grant awardees combined with our wide range of workshops, projects and events is fuelling our ever-increasing media profile.

Our recent scientific meeting on the ‘Developing brain in health and disease’ gained a huge amount of coverage, with one story taking centre stage. This was following one of the meeting’s keynote speakers and an Academy Fellow, Professor Peter Jones FMedSci, telling a group of journalists at a press briefing ahead of the meeting about human brain maturation: "There isn't a childhood and then an adulthood. People are on a pathway, they're on a trajectory." See the full BBC story here.

This story was picked up both nationally and internationally, online and in print, with the estimated reach to the public exceeding 13.5 million people. The story also gained significant broadcast attention, including a Bloomberg interview via Skype which was tweeted out to their 641,000 twitter followers, as well as national radio interviews.

This meeting was possible thanks to funding from the Academy’s Development Fund and support from nine donor organisations[1]. The Academy’s Helix Group is an important contributor to the Development Fund and we are most grateful to all our Fellows and friends who are Helix members and donate £250 or more each year to support the Academy’s work.

The Academy’s fundraising through the Helix Group is an important element of our activities and ensures we can act proactively to drive policy change and support the next generation of biomedical and clinical researchers going forward. The Helix Group allows Fellows and other key individuals to have greater engagement with the Academy while providing essential regular and unrestricted funds. Since the Helix Group was established it has provided over £150,000 of funding to support our work, highlighting the value and impact that modest donations can have.

The Developing Brain meeting was our first ever scientific meeting and was a huge success, praised by attendees for its innovative format in bringing together an extremely diverse range of researchers to further understanding in this complex field. This meeting would not have been possible without the valuable donations from our Helix Group members, which enable the Academy the freedom to support exciting and innovative projects such as this.

We always welcome new Helix Group members, to enquire about joining please visit our website, or contact Rosie at rosanna.tabor@acmedsci.ac.uk. Donors are recognised on a commemorative board in the Fellows Room at 41 Portland Place, at our Annual Meeting and are invited to our annual Helix Reception.

[1] Alzheimer's Research UK, the Company of Biologists, F1000 Research, the Guarantors of Brain, the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO), the International Society for Developmental Neuroscience, the Loulou Foundation, Peak Labs and the Wellcome Trust 

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