Public Communications Steering Team

The role of the Public Communications Steering Team is to devise and implement opportunities to provide the following:

  • Proactive, science-based, public statements on issues in the toxicological sciences which are relevant to the interests of the public, as well as BTS members and the broader scientific community.
  • Reactive public statements on high-profile issues in toxicology and safety assessment which have received, or are likely to receive, media, civil society and public attention – and where an immediate response may be provided by the BTS either by request or where the BTS chooses to provide such a response.
  • Responses to public consultations, for example from government departments or expert advisory committees.
  • Opportunities to collaborate with other scientific societies to provide responses to public consultations where appropriate.

Public statements will be provided as written papers, videos, infographics or other relevant media, and will be published on the BTS website. In addition, BTS webinars may be used as an additional means of communication.

Public statements will be authored by relevant subject-matter experts identified by the Public Communications Steering Team and will be BTS members wherever possible.

 

Guidance for authors and reviewers of BTS Public Statements

 

The Public Communications Steering Team will commission, peer-review and approve the publication of all public statements. Where appropriate, the Executive Committee will also approve the output and may contribute to the review and approval process.

The Public Communications Steering Team works independently of any subcommittee, but is aligned to the Communications Subcommittee to ensure that effective mechanisms are used to communicate the public statements; this will include the BTS Newsfeed and social media.

The Public Communications Steering Team welcome input from members for items of interest to be considered.

 

The current membership of the Public Communication Steering Team as of June 2023 is:

Chair: Dr Ernie Harpur

Secretary: Mrs Julianna Berrie

Members:

  • Dr Phil Botham
  • Dr Paul Baldrick
  • Dr Tina Mehta
  • Dr Chris Powell
  • Professor Shirley Price
  • Professor Heather Wallace
  • Dr Trudy Knight
  • Dr Bryony Ross

Committee Links