Award Someone Who Makes a Difference

Society in Science is exploring new avenues to spread the word about its generous personal grants. Complementing a bold print and online advertising campaign, a customisable video has just been launched to trigger a viral social web campaign.

The video is available on www.theawardceremony.org. Visitors to the site can award a friend, colleague or even themselves by simply entering the awardees’ name, the prize and the subject field. Society in Science is primarily interested in reaching junior researchers in new scientific fields and gives as an example psychoneuroimmunology, a field that is already covered by some current fellows.

Ashton-Griffith: “Sure you’re the best. Pity nobody’s heard of you yet”is the punch line of a video that involved one hundred people on set and features the British actor Roger Ashton-Griffiths in the leading role. Ashton-Griffiths stars in Woody Allen’s recent film “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”.

Professor Peter Chen, the new director of Society in Science: “It was Branco Weiss himself who wanted to venture into new fields, not just with respect to the junior researchers that benefit from his endowment, but also with respect to communicating this fellowship.”The late Swiss entrepreneur and investor Branco Weiss increased the endowment and approved the current communications campaign shortly before his passing in October 2010.

Recipients of the Branco Weiss Fellowship call it “a win in the lottery”since it provides them with true academic freedom. The fellowship is anxious to address scholars in new fields of research. Awareness is steadily increasing in the United States of America and Europe, so now the focus will turn to seeking out ways to become better known in Asia, Africa and South America.