The European Science Television and New Media Awards Evening 2010 On the theme: A New Age for Science and Broadcasting Monday 22 November At the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Savoy Place, London WC2 The 2010 Awards Evening is held in conjunction with and supported by:

Associate Supporters:

European Organisers:

 

6.30pm Arrivals and Refreshments

7.00pm Introduction on behalf of PAWS/EuroPAWS
Susan Rae

Welcome on behalf of the IET
Dr Mike Short FREng FIET, Deputy President

Science and Technology in a European Production in the following categories:

• Best TV Documentary
• Best TV Drama
• Best TV General Programme
• Best New Media Production
• Best presentation by or of a Woman Scientist or Engineer
• Best presentation of Science or Technology behind an Environmental Issue
• Young Persons Award for the Best presentation of Science & Technology in a TV Documentary

Keynote Talk:

Professor Dame Ann Dowling DBE FRS FREng
Head of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Keynote Talk:

Andrew Cohen
Head of the Science Unit, BBC

A New Age for Science and Broadcasting
Discussion on the Way Ahead for Science and TV/New Media

Session Moderator: Susan Rae

Dr Tara Shears
Particle Physicist and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool

Professor Chris Mason MBBS PhD FRCSI FRCS
Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing
Department of Biochemical Engineering, UCL

Julian Phillips
Mulitplatform Executive Producer, London Factual, BBC

Professor Dame Ann Dowling
Head of the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Andrew Cohen
Head of Science, BBC

8.45pm Reception
Riverside Room overlooking the Thames

TO REGISTER, E-mail your acceptance to pawsomni@btconnect.com or telephone 0(044) 20 7483 4545 with name and contact details.

Speaker Profiles

Prof Dame Ann Dowling, DBE, FRS, FREng Ann Dowling is Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge where she is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chairman of the University Gas Turbine Partnership with Rolls-Royce. She has held visiting posts at MIT (Jerome C Hunsaker Visiting Professor) and at Caltech (Moore Distinguished Scholar). Her research is aimed at low-emission power generation and efficient and quiet vehicles. She was the UK lead of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge and MIT whichreleased a conceptual design of an ultra-low noise and fuel efficient aircraft. Ann Dowling is a Fellow of the Royal Society (currently a Council member), Royal Academy of Engineering (Vice-President 1999-2002) and is a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering and of the French Academy of Sciences. Ann has served on a number of industry and government advisory committees and was appointed CBE by the Queen for services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002, DBE for services to Science in 2007, and received an Honorary ScD from Trinity College Dublin in 2008.

 

Andrew Cohen Andrew became Head of BBC Science in January 2010. He had previously been Editor of Horizon for 5 years and was Executive Producer of the award winning Wonders of the Solar System. Over the last fifteen years he’s worked across a broad range of science programmes on all of the BBC channels from Tomorrow’s World to Edge of Life.

 

Susan Rae If you have never seen Susan Rae, you will almost certainly have heard her – most currently as a newsreader on BBC Radio Four (she’s a regular voice on the Today Programme) or Radio 2; perhaps narrating murder and science documentaries on Discovery, telling you things you never knew on the History Channel, or filling you in on showbiz gossip on the Biography Channnel. Susan has also presented all kinds of television programmes and conferences. She has been with PAWS since its inception.

 

Dr Michael Short Mike Short’s career spans 33 years in electronics and telecommunications, with the last 20 years in mobile communications. He was appointed contracts director of Cellnet in 1989 dealing with major infra-structure investments and UK interconnect agreements. In 1993 the focus moved to launching Cellnet’s GSM service and establishing roaming agreements. He was elected Chairman of the GSM Association for 1995/96 and served on its executive board for 5 years. He has also served as a member of the UK Home Office Internet Task Force and UK OSAB (Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board) until 2006 and 2007 respectively. Mike has chaired the UK Mobile Data Association since 1998, leading the Association as chairman and spokesperson and on public policy. He was appointed VP Technology for O2 Group in 2000, visiting professor at Surrey University in 2003 and to the Coventry University Board in 2006. He is a Fellow of BCS, CIPS, IET and RGS, and a member of the Royal Television Society. Mike’s focus today is on third generation cellular, mobile TV and steering Telefonica O2 Europe’s Group Research and Development in mobile.

 

Tara Shears Tara Shears is a particle physicist and Reader at the University of Liverpool. She started her career investigating the behaviour of fundamental particles and forces at the OPAL experiment at CERN, the European centre for particle physics, and was subsequently awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship with the University of Liverpool in 2000 to continue her research at the CDF experiment, at the Fermilab particle physics facility near Chicago, USA. Tara joined the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in 2004. This experiment has been designed to investigate where all the antimatter in the universe has gone. Data-taking started in earnest earlier this year – and, together with her collaborators, Tara is eagerly analysing the data to find some answers.

 

Chris Mason MBBS, PhD, FRCSI, FRCS Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing Department of Biochemical Engineering, UCL Chris Mason is Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing in the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, University College London. Chris has a background in commerce (IT), a Clinical Sciences degree (Imperial College), a Medical Degree (St. Thomas’s Hospital), a PhD in tissue-engineering (UCL) and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Other current responsibilities include Senior Editor of “Regenerative Medicine” journal, co-founder and Director of the London Regenerative Medicine Network (LRMN), Trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation (UKSCF), member of the Biologicals and Vaccines Expert Advisory Group of the Commission on Human Medicines and member of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Monographs – Biologics & Biotechnology Expert Committee.

 

Julian Phillips Mulitplatform Executive Producer, London Factual, BBC Julian started his media career with TV company Mentorn Films where he quickly rose to Series producer on programmes such as Channel 5′s daily magazine show Exclusive and Challenge Annekafor BBC One. The internet boom saw him leave TV for the challenges that broadband presented. He joined Tiscali in 2000 to head up their European Broadband strategy in Milan and spent two years shaping Tiscali’s European broadband offer with groundbreaking multimillion contracts with MTV, OD2 and other European media suppliers. Julian then took his multiplatform skills back to TV production following an offer to join Nation217. There he was responsible for setting up an entire interactive TV channel. After an exhausting year creating a business and content strategy he was asked to join BSkyB as Editor of Sky Active creating a cross-platform interactive channel introducing many new highly technical components to create seamless user journeys. In 2006 he was invited to join the BBC as an executive producer for Interactive Factual and Learning where he created some innovative solutions for BBC content and won several industry awards. In 2007 he was promoted to Head of Development – Multiplatform production – BBC Vision. These multiplatform productions include:- Live Earth, Long Way Down, Castaway, It’s Not Easy Being Green, Messages from the Frontier.  In 2008, Julian won the NMA Award for Best use of interactive TV for “How Green Are You?” This year, he and his team won a BAFTA and Emmy for their digital proposition around the BBC Two programme The Virtual Revolution.

Finalists
(in alphabetical order, by category)

TV DOCUMENTARY

ALIENS OF THE AMAZON
Secret Alliance
Mona Lisa Production, France for ARTE 2009

This programme follows a group of researchers embarking on an expedition in Ecuador to study the Membracide – an insect family virtually unknown to us. However, these neotropical treehoppers are probably the most astonishing creatures ever devised by Nature! Some people view them as nothing more than miniature aliens; others consider them to be true masterpieces of biodiversity. In either case, with their weird and wonderful shapes, they are a source of bewilderment for the scientific community.
Writers: Thierry Berrod, Patrick Landmann, Yves Paccalet, Quincy Russell
Producer: Thierry Berrod

COLLECTIVE MINDS: The Intelligence of Swarms
ZDF/ARTE Germany, 2009

A single ant is not that clever, a colony of ants, however, is! Swarms are fascinating and formidable. They possess a form of intelligence radically different from those of humans. How can a single unintelligent part become an intelligent whole? Collective Minds attempts to answer this fundamental question of science.
Director: Jakob Kneser
Production company: Tristan Chytoschek a&o Buero (Germany)

EMPIRE OF THE SUN
Episode 1 of the 5 part series ‘Wonders of the Solar System‘
BBC, UK 2010

In this first episode Professor Brian Cox explores the powerhouse of them all, the sun. In India he witnesses a total solar eclipse – In Norway, he watches the battle between the sun’s wind and earth, as the night sky glows with the northern lights.

Beyond earth, the solar wind continues, creating dazzling aurora on other planets. Brian makes contact with Voyager, a probe that has been travelling since its launch 30 years ago. Now 14 billion kilometres away, Voyager has just detected the solar wind is beginning to peter out. But even here we haven’t reached the end of the sun’s rule.

Brian explains how its greatest power, gravity, reaches out for hundreds of billions of kilometres, where the lightest gravitational touch encircles our solar system in a mysterious cloud of comets.
Presenter: Brian Cox Director: Gideon Bradshaw
Producer: Danielle Peck Executive Producer: Andrew Cohen

THE VOLCANO THAT STOPPED THE WORLD
Pioneer Productions for Channel 4 in association with Discovery Channel 2010

Geologist Nick Petford heads into the heart of the eruption zone of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and explores the geological and scientific background leading up to the eruption. The documentary identifies the dangers posed by the ash and the effects that it has on aircraft and aviation, as well as exploring the impacts of further possible eruptions to the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Presenter: Prof Nick Petford Executive Producer: Stuart Carter
Producers: Martin Mortimore; David Hutt; Pete Chinn;Tom Stubberfield

TV DRAMA

DER ABGRUND: EINE STADT STÜRZT EIN (GAPING ABYSS: A City Collapses)
Produced by Action Image GMBH for ProSieben in association
with SevenOne International, Germany 2008

After a series of cave-ins result from improper tunneling, a lone woman geologist must expose a mining company’s wrongdoing and save a football stadium with 30,000 fans from collapse.
Director: Sebastian Vigg Producer: Hermann Joha
Executive Producer: Stefan Retzbach

DIE REBELLIN (The Rebel)
ZDF, NDF Germany, 2009

As the Soviet troops advance into Germany at the end of WW II, Lena Berkow flees to Bavaria with her mother and sister. Her dream is to follow in her father’s footsteps and develop a television set for the masses. As a woman in a field dominated by men, as a poor refugee among prosperous ex-Nazi industrialists, she fights an uphill battle. Yet despite countless setbacks and tragedies both personal and professional, she finds love and recognition, starts a family, and realises her dream.
Director: Ute Wieland
Screenplay: Christian Jeltsch Monika Peetz

EINSTEIN: THE MIND OF A GENIUS, THE HEART OF A MAN
Ciao Ragazzi srl for RAI, Italy 2008

Einstein had a turbulent life, but with many happy and fulfilling moments. His relationship with his first wife Mileva, also a physicist, is at the heart of this TV film. They met again in America late in life and the story of their earlier years is retraced from this perspective. Mileva’s key role in helping Albert present his theories of relativity is revealing, as are the tensions between Einstein’s creative drive and his personal relationships. Many of the key milestones in Einstein life are brought to life from a human perspective whilst incorporating enough of the physics to keep the story balance.
Writers/Producers: Massimo de Rita, Mario Falcone, Liliana Cavani

TV GENERAL PROGRAMMING

A COLLECTION FOR THE FUTURE
Episode six from the series ‘MUSEUM OF LIFE‘
BBC 2, UK 2010

Jimmy Doherty and the team go behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum to see how science taking place today will impact on all of us in the future. Beetles inspire new technologies, the latest scanner allows scientists to take a trip inside a shark, and ancient specimens are called into the battle to help prevent extinction.
Presenter Jimmy Doherty Presenter Mark Carwardine
Presenter Liz Bonnin Presenter Chris van Tulleken Presenter Kate Bellingham
Director Ian A Hunt Director Sophie Harris
Producer Ian A Hunt Producer Sophie Harris Producer Tim Green

BANG GOES THE THEORY – Episode 2010
BBC, UK 2010

This is a regular science magazine show which covers all aspects of science and technology. It is usually a multi-item presentation, but there can be a topical emphasis. This episode represents a quick turnaround reactive commission following the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano and the subsequent grounding of planes. The programme aims at a significant level of explanation whilst still maintaining the attention of the large audience of an early evening slot.
Series Producer: Ed Booth

GUGLIELMO MARCONI: THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE FUTURE
RAI Educational, Italy 2009

Marconi is probably best known as the pioneer of long distance radio transmissions. Celebrated in Italy where he was brought up and returned in later life, much of his most innovative work was carried out in England. This film traces the life of this adventurous but also quite reserved individual, interlacing extensive historical footage with insights from a presenter. It also keeps the viewer constantly aware of the political environment of Marconi’s endeavours, and the military as well as peaceful consequences of his inventions.
Writer: Leonardo Celi Producer: Piero Corsini

SCHATZSUCHE IM MUELL (TREASURE SEARCH AT THE MILL)
From the science magazine series Quarks and Co, WDR, Germany, 2010

Quarks and Co is a science magazine programme which is not afraid to look at issues which are largely hidden from the public gaze. The re-cycling of metals is a major industry, and this edition devotes its whole story to how different metals are handled in Germany. Linked from a studio strewn with scrap metal, Ranga Yogehswar provides a backbone to a storyline that canvasses public opinion about such waste. Copper, Silver, Iron, the programme reveals how waste electronics is handled and the scale of the operation. It doesn’t shy away from showering the viewer with what it considers essential figures, to drive home the re-cycling message.
Writers: Dirk Gilson. Sonja Kolonko, Peter Krachten, Eva Schultes, Silke Uebelstaedt Producer Frank Strauss

NEW MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

EVOLUTION BEFORE OUR EYES
LMU Germany 2009

Viruses can evolve fast and sometimes adapt quickly to a new host species. For example, an influenza virus that normally infects birds can become adapted to humans. The tobacco etch virus normally infects tobacco plants. Professor Santiago Elena from Valencia wants to find out what it takes to make the tobacco virus capable of infecting another plant: Arabidopsis. The movie shows how Santiago Elena does the evolutionary experiment and we see that after 30 rounds of experimental evolution the virus is indeed adapted to the new host plant! After the experiment, Elena looks at the genetic code of the adapted virus and finds that there are just three differences between the genetic code of the normal (tobacco loving) virus and the virus that is now adapted to Arabidopsis.
Scientific Expert: Professor Santiago Elena
Directors: Robert Sigl, Bernhard Rübe & Pleuni Pennings – Script & editing: Brant Backlund Producer: Brant Backlund Executive Producer: Pleuni Pennings

SKYLAND, THE VERTICAL FARM MADE IN ITALY
ENEA WebTV, Italy 2009

A promotional video produced by ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) to support Skyland, a project idea for sustainable vertical farming. Vertical farms within the city boundaries are the new frontier of indoor agriculture. The distance between production and consumption is set to zero while distribution costs and pollution sensibly reduced.
Authors: F. Falconieri, M. Maffioletti

THE LHC IS COOL + COLLISIONS!
LHC News from CERN, Switzerland
Broadcasts on YouTube 2009

LHC News is a regular presentation on YouTube of issues and developments at the Large Hadron Collider and its four experiments at CERN, near Geneva. Two episodes are selected here.

The Large Hadron Collider’s cryogenics installations are the largest helium plants in the world. The LHC is now cold and ready to start…. Paola Catapano presents the series and interviews Serge Claudet, Head of the LHC cryogenic operation team.

We then see a later episode as tension mounts in the control rooms when first high energy collisions are imminent.
Producers Silvano de Gennaro, Jacques Fichet

WOMEN IN SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DER ABGRUND: EINE STADT STÜRZT EIN (GAPING ABYSS: A City Collapses)
Produced by Action Image GMBH for ProSieben in association
with SevenOne International, Germany 2008

After a series of cave-ins result from improper tunneling, a lone woman geologist must expose a mining company’s wrongdoing and save a football stadium with 30,000 fans from collapse. A woman geologist is at the heart of the story.
Director: Sebastian Vigg Producer: Hermann Joha
Executive Producer: Stefan Retzbach

HOMO INTERNETICUS
Programme 4 from the series The Virtual Revolution
The Open University / BBC, UK 2010

Concluding programme in a series presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski, an expert in the social consequences of technology, looking at how the World Wide Web is transforming almost every aspect of our lives.

Joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Al Gore and the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, Aleks examines the popularity of social networks such as Facebook and asks how they are changing our relationships. And, in a ground-breaking test at University College London, Aleks investigates how the Web may be distracting and overloading our brains.

Series Producer: Russell Barnes Presenter: Dr Aleks Krotoski
Director: Molly Milton Producer: Molly Milton
Executive Producer:Dominic Crossley-Holland

EINSTEIN: THE MIND OF A GENIUS, THE HEART OF A MAN
Ciao Ragazzi srl for RAI, Italy 2008

Einstein had a turbulent life, but with many happy and fulfilling moments. His relationship with his first wife Mileva, also a physicist, is at the heart of this TV film. They met again in America late in life and the story of their earlier years is retraced from this perspective. Mileva’s key role in helping Albert present his theories of relativity is revealing, as are the tensions between Einstein’s creative drive and his personal relationships. Many of the key milestones in Einstein life are brought to life from a human perspective whilst incorporating enough of the physics to keep the story balance. Mileva Einstein has a central role in the film.
Writers/Producers: Massimo de Rita, Mario Falcone, Liliana Cavani

EINSTEIN MAGAZINE SERIES
Schweize Fernsehen (Swiss German television) 2010

The Swiss German Science Magazine series EINSTEIN presented two items, one of which featured a Swiss woman astrophysicist as she participates in a simulation in the United States of a landing on Mars. The informal and humorous style gives a sympathetic take on the life of a scientist, and offers a good role model of a woman physicist.
Writer Mars item: Jacqueline Schwerzmann
Writer Mobile Phone Hacking: Peter Höllrigl

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ATOMIC ALERT
Play Film Production for France 3, 2009

In the face of the international expansion of civil and military nuclear energy,
Atomic Alert sets out to give a thorough understanding of the strategic issues linked to nuclear energy and its risks on an international level, including public health, waste management, environmental and political issues. It also recognises the centrakl role of civil nuclear power in many countries.
The programme takes us on a journey to the heart of nuclear technology, including its risks to the world and the way it is managed.
Writer and Director: Thomas Johnson

BANG GOES THE THEORY – Episode 2010 on the Iceland Volcano
BBC, UK 2010

This is a regular science magazine show which covers all aspects of science and technology. It is usually a multi-item presentation, but there can be a topical emphasis. This episode represents a quick turnaround reactive commission following the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland and the subsequent grounding of planes. The programme aims at a significant level of explanation whilst still maintaining the attention of the large audience of an early evening slot.
Series Producer: Ed Booth

SECRETS IN SIBERIAN ICE
A co-production with MDR in co-operation with ARTE

A quarter of the landmass of the northern hemisphere is permanently frozen – if this ice melts, it would dramatically change the infrastructure and the ecosystem.

A team of German and Russian researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute travelled to the Siberian lake El’gygytgyn, frozen and untouched for thousands of years. Here, they hope to find information on prehistoric climate change.
Written & Directed by Jörg Poppendieck Editorial Roland Miethke
Chief Editor MDR Bernhard Wiedemann Producer Olaf Jacobs

THE VOLCANO THAT STOPPED THE WORLD
Pioneer Productions for Channel 4 in association with Discovery Channel 2010

Geologist Nick Petford heads into the heart of the eruption zone of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and explores the geological and scientific background leading up to the eruption. The documentary identifies the dangers posed by the ash and the effects that it has on aircraft and aviation, as well as exploring the impacts of further possible eruptions to the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Presenter: Prof Nick Petford Executive Producer: Stuart Carter
Producers: Martin Mortimore; David Hutt; Pete Chinn; Tom Stubberfield