Watch Summer School Sessions On-demand
Recordings of ABSW Science & Technology Journalism Summer School 2025 are available for members and delegates.
Lecture Theatre 1 on one side, Lecture Theatre 2 on the other; just a few steps in between, but impossible to follow two sessions at the same time. Worry no more, recordings are now available for all ABSW Summer School 2025 delegates and all ABSW members.
Videos are best watched with headphones due to some variable sound quality in certain sessions. Apologies for the low quality of some of the recordings (video and/or audio) - these were recorded live at the venue, and some issues were beyond our control.
Captions can be turned on using the Vimeo toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
Special thanks to ABSW members Alison Cooper and Zoe Chernova for preparing the videos.
Career paths in science journalism
Panellists: Maeve Cullinan, Global health security reporter, The Telegraph; Jasper Jackson, Investigative journalist, Bureau of Investigative Journalism; Caroline Steel, Presenter, BBC Radio; and Jonathan O'Callaghan, Freelance space journalist.
Producer: Deborah Cohen, former editor of the BBC Radio Science Unit and ABSW Secretary
How do you become a science journalist? What's the best way to build up experience when you're still starting out? And once you have your first job, what career paths are available, and how do you work your way through the ranks? A panel of science journalists in the first few years of their careers discuss how they started out and where their careers have taken them.
5 things we wish we'd known when we began our feature-writing careers
Panellists: Aisling Irwin, award winning feature writer and ABSW Board member; Liam Drew, who writes features on biology and medicine with bylines in Nature, The Guardian, Aeon and Quanta; Clare Wilson, who is science writer at The i Paper and formerly a reporter for New Scientist; Rachel Brazil who worked in academic publishing and for learned societies until, 12 years ago, she switched to science feature writing; and Shaoni Bhattacharya, science writer, editor and consultant.
Experienced feature writers talk about the mistakes they made at the start of their careers and how you can avoid them.
Journalism from scientific papers: Finding the most valuable stories
Workshop leaders: Andy Extance, Freelance science Writer and ABSW Chair; Emma Stoye, Senior News Editor, Nature; Sarah Wild, Freelance Science Journalist; and Dalmeet Singh Chawla, Freelance Science Journalist
Research papers are at the heart of the scientific process. With time pressures always an issue, there is a skill to getting the best stories from academic literature. Attendees will learn: How journalists can best navigate the structure of scientific papers; How can we find the strongest angles from papers everyone is covering; Where can we find interesting and important stories no one else has covered.
Turning your topic into a story
Workshop leaders: Claire Ainsworth has held reporter and editor posts at both New Scientist and Nature, and is now freelance; she is also an experienced science writing trainer. Aisling Irwin is an award-winning feature writer and ABSW board member.
Editors complain that journalists pitch them subject areas or "topics" rather than "stories". If you are going to pitch successfully, you need to know the difference. This workshop will delve into what makes a great story, and will help you hone the skills needed to find story ideas within your topic.
The Art of Pitching
Workshop Leader: Mun Keat Looi, International Features Editor, BMJ; ABSW Board member and lecturer on journalism at Imperial College London.
Learn the basics and build a strong foundation to write (and evaluate) pitches for a variety of outlets.
Interview Skills: Get the story you need from the person in front of you
Workshop Leader: Alok Jha, Science and technology editor, The Economist
How to interview to get the most out of your interviewee? How to get the answers you need, and keep the interviewee engaged and on topic?
Misinformation - how to spot it and how to counter it
Workshop leaders: Jon Roozenbeek, Lecturer in Psychology and Security, King's College, London; Freya Robb, Senior Press Officer, Science Media Centre; and Mevan Babakar, Manager, Trust Strategy, Google. Producer: Andy Ridgway, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University of the West of England and ABSW Board member.
Experts outline how to spot misinformation, how to counter it and how to spot red flags in data.
Your digital future
Panellists: Mun Keat Looi, International Features Editor, BMJ; ABSW Board member and lecturer on journalism at Imperial College London. Olivia Hains is Media and Project Manager at Aeon Media, the publisher behind Aeon and Psyche magazines, and a freelance journalist writing about health, science, gender and social justice.
A discussion on the evolving digital landscape of media and publishing, plus a review of the digital tools that will be key to your job as a journalist.
Becoming a science YouTuber
Workshop leader: Tom Crawford, is a Mathematician at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. He also runs an award-winning website and associated social media profiles on Instagram, Facebook, X and YouTube @tomrocksmaths.
During this session, Dr Tom Crawford (@tomrocksmaths) will discuss the ins and outs of how to physically make a video and upload it to YouTube, with a focus on what it's actually like to be a YouTuber. How much do you reveal about your true self? How do you maintain a degree of privacy while still trying to interact genuinely with your audience? How do you balance academic vigour with engaging in clickbait and other audience-building strategies for the algorithms? If you’ve ever thought about making YouTube content but don’t know where to start, this is the session for you.
