KI joins the international news platform The Conversation

“To increase our international presence is one of the three main themes identified in KI’s strategy, and we, at the Communications Office, of course want to do our part,” says KI’s Director of Communications Anna Maria Böök. “The Conversation reaches a very wide international readership with popular science articles in every conceivable field. It also offers professional support to the researchers who get involved.”

The Conversation is a politically unaffiliated platform based on the principle that academic researchers write their own popular science articles, analyses and opinion pieces in their own area of expertise – with the help of an editor. In order to find suitable people to author articles on current issues, the site’s editors collaborate with the communication departments of the different member universities. This said, it is also possible for researchers to suggest topics themselves. All articles on the site are open access and available for other media to republish.

Financed through membership fees

The Conversation was launched in 2011 in Australia and now has separate editions for the UK (including Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland), New Zealand, Canada, Spain, France, Indonesia, Africa and USA. It is financed through membership fees and grants from about 500 universities and research organisations around the world.

In Sweden, as of the new year, Karolinska Institutet will be joining Lund and Stockholm universities as members, by means of a tie-in agreement with Stockholm University as part of the Stockholm Trio collaboration.

Further information on how to write for The Conversation as a KI researcher will be provided in January. The KI Communications Office also plans to offer Zoom seminars with speakers from The Conversation in the spring.