Programme ECSJ
Bit by bit our programme is taking shape. Besides a keynote from Elisabeth Bik, we are planning sessions with multiple speakers about diversity in science and lessons learned from covid coverage, with ample room for discussion. Also, there will be lectures on topics like how to recognize scientific hoaxes and fake news, and a special hands-on workshop by Bellingcat, tailored to science journalists.
Stay tuned: as soon as more topics and speakers are confirmed, we will update this section.
- Conference Day Tuesday 12 July 2022 12 July 2022
- Conference morning Wednesday 13 July 2022 13 July 2022
- Field trips Sunday 10 July 2022 10 July 2022
- Field trips Monday 11 July 2022 11 July 2022
- KOG Building Large Auditorium
- KOG Building Room 1
- KOG Building Room 2
- KOG Building Room 3
- KOG Building Room 4
- Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
After two days of field trips and getting to know each other, it is time to open the official European Conference of Science Journalism Leiden 2022. Or: #ECSJ2022
Moderator:
Rebecca Clear
Speakers, time and room to be announced.
With Maarten Keuleman, science journalist for newspaper De Volkskrant and Dutch journalist of the year 2021.
More details coming soon.
Science integrity will always remain a work in progress. While peer-review is a necessary first step in safeguarding the quality and integrity of scientific research, the system has been proven to be far from perfect. Elisabeth Bik has pioneered a ‘forensic’ approach to quality control, by painstakingly checking images, mainly in biomedical publications, for duplications and other unacceptable ways of manipulation. She has identified hundreds of papers with serious flaws, resulting in many retractions.
Her criticism of high-profile researchers like Didier Raoult – who claimed hydroxychloroquine cured covid-19 – has made her the target of lawsuit threats and vicious personal attacks on social media. However, she has no intention of backing down in her quest to improve science integrity.

One needs food for thought.
Alexander Pleijter (Leiden University) is an expert in online journalism and fact checking. He is one of the coordinators of the Dutch ‘News checkers’-website www.nieuwscheckers.nl, a project that aims to help the public properly evaluate (online) news and to teach journalism students the skill of fact checking. At ECSJ he will talk about how to recognise hoaxes and fake news in science reporting.
Time and room to be announced.
What should science do to achieve more diversity, can there be drawbacks of such a mission and what is the role and responsibility of science journalists?
Invited speaker:
Asha ten Broeke, Dutch science journalist and columnist
Moderator:
Rebecca Clear
More speakers, time and room to be announced.
International collective Bellingcat, based in The Netherlands, does investigative journalism using publicly available informtion. They did impressive work in cases like the MH17-crash and the conflict in Syria. How do they use open source data in their investigations? In this workshop they’ll teach you some of their methods.
Mostly, a science reporter zooms in on topics that are socially relevant but can be approached from a safe and comfortable distance. But a pandemic is not distant for any science reporter: we’ve all been in the middle of it. How can a science reporter work in an engaged and neutral way during such a crisis? And how desirable is it to be as neutral as possible when there is so much at stake and the science and it implications have become so value laden and political?
Invited speakers:
Lise Barnéoud (Le Monde)
Heidi Ledford (Nature)
Kai Kupferschmidt (Science)
Moderator:
Jop de Vrieze
Time and room to be announced.
During the day there will be several workshops by and for science journalists.

One needs food for thought.

One needs food for thought.

One needs food for thought.

One needs food for thought.
After a full conference day and maybe even two field trip days it’s time to contemplate together with your science journalist colleagues.
The closing drinks & bites will be hosted in the beautiful science museum Boerhaave with an amazing collection of ancient and modern artefacts which contributed to the advancement of science.
The museum hosts special tours during the evening.
The European Federation for Science Journalism will host two events, namely: the award ceremony for the European Science Journalist of the Year Award and the EFSJ will announce the laureates of the EFSJ Climate Grant.
The European Science Journalist of the Year Award will be announced by the EFSJ.
Announcement of the laureates of the EFSJ Climate Grants.
- KOG Building Large Auditorium
- KOG Building Room 1
- External

To be announced.
- External
