2.19 Assignment (2)

To find scientists in your region via the internet, try these steps:

1. Use search engines such as Google, Yahoo, msn, using terms appropriate to your chosen topic and locality, for example: malaria research centre and Africa.
2. Browse the links that appear and see which organisations carry contact information for researchers in your area.
3. You may find the organisation AMANET (the African Malaria Network Trust), and a database of malaria researchers preparing for clinical trials of malaria vaccines in Africa. [ http://www.amanet-trust.org/ext/database.htm ] Click on the link to AMANET's research directory, listing further details of research partners in Africa. [ http://www.amanet-trust.org/ext/database/amanet_directory.pdf ]
4. See if the organisations highlighted in your internet search also list events and meetings. These may provide useful information and ideas for science stories. AMANET, for example, links to a workshop on leadership skills. [ http://www.amanet-trust.org/ext/workshops/2006/management.htm ] The topic of this workshop indicates that the scientists who participated are likely to be top researchers and so would be worth contacting to get an overview of current progress in their field. They may also be willing to be the subject of a personal profile type of feature story.
5. These same steps can be repeated for many different topic areas to reveal research organisations that have websites and contact details.

Please note: Many research centres in Africa do not yet have their own websites, and you may only find them listed as collaborators of other organisations. Bear in mind too, that many websites might be completely out of date. Also, if someone has a boring website this does not mean he or she does boring research.


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