Media and Communications

While the pandemic ground many things to a halt in 2020, that was not the case for ACEMS Media and Communications. In fact, it was the busiest year yet – with so many good stories to tell and share.

Media from around Australia, and in some spots around the world, featured ACEMS research and researchers. The news outlets where these stories appeared include ABC News and Science, Cosmos Magazine, the Nine Media Group, The Conversation, Forbes and the New York Times. ACEMS and its collaborating universities also featured Centre researchers in more than three dozen stories and news releases from ACEMS and its collaborating universities. See the full list here

One of the main focuses for ACEMS Media and Communications Officer Tim Macuga was the ACEMS podcast, The Random Sample. ACEMS released two seasons of the podcast in 2020, a total of 21 episodes. Several episodes featured ACEMS research into various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other topics included mathematical biology, randomised trials, open data, the history of Bayesian stats, misinformation on social media, the maths behind a soap bubble record, and statistics in sports.

ACEMS led a video campaign to help celebrate International Women in Mathematics Day 2020. The campaign was a collaborative effort with the Women in Maths Special Interest Group (WIMSIG) from the Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS).

More than 70 women from around Australia – and the world – submitted video messages promoting mathematics and statistics to the next generation of students. The videos generated more than 10,000 views on the ACEMS YouTube, Facebook and Twitter social media channels. On Twitter alone, there were more than 400,000 tweet impressions (number of times a tweet appears in someone’s timeline).

Another video project involved a collaboration with other ARC Centres of Excellence. Communications and media officers from 11 Centres created a video series called "Q & ARC". The project aimed to introduce the different centres, their researchers, and their research. The video series can be found on the Australian Research Council's YouTube page. The ACEMS video featured Deputy Director Kerrie Mengersen (QUT), Research Fellow Sarat Babu Moka (UQ), and PhD Candidate Caitlin Gray (Adelaide).

The ACEMS brand continued to gain more recognition through its website and social media channels. ACEMS Twitter showed strong growth in 2020, with a 25% increase in the number of followers. Also, ACEMS Twitter had 1.6-million tweet impressions (the number of times a tweet appears in someone’s timeline) over the year. That’s an 80% jump over 2019! Facebook followers jumped by 18% from year to year.

One of the great success stories is the ACEMS YouTube channel, which saw a 75% increase in the number of subscribers. ACEMS videos had 21,000 views, up 160% from 2019.

The final focus for ACEMS media and communications is to make sure researchers learn how to communicate their messages better and work with the media. Along with four other ARC Centres of Excellence, ACEMS presented two communications and media training workshops. Tim Macuga presented on preparing for media interviews.