A group of researchers seeks to create the Brazilian version of the scientific news page The Conversation, which produces content in eight countries and is now investing in a Brazilian branch, founded this Wednesday (25th).
Under the motto “academic rigor, journalistic style”, the page is aimed at the general public and focuses its strategy on the license for free republication. According to data from the organization, the texts are republished by around 20,000 websites and newspapers, leveraging an audience of around 50 million readers per month.
“The focus on academic quality content, but written in a language accessible to the general public, also makes the initiative a powerful instrument in the fight against disinformation and denialism here and abroad”, says Natalia Pasternak, president of the Instituto Questão de Ciência and one of the counselors of The Conversation Brasil, alongside researchers such as João Tude, director of the business school at the Federal University of Bahia, and lawyer Silvio Almeida, president of the Luiz Gama institute and columnist for Sheet.
Outside, the operations are sponsored by universities and also by philanthropic institutions, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Here, however, the initiative has not yet found investment for the operations of its own page with content in Portuguese.
“When entering other countries, the initiative received financial support from 5 to 6 universities, on average. In Brazil, we know that public universities are going through a difficult time. Therefore, our expectation is even with the foundations”, says journalist Daniel Stycer, director of The Conversation Brasil.
“A major challenge for Brazilian universities is internationalization. Today, The Conversation is a platform for this. We hope that universities gain this perception”, says Jorge Félix, who presides over the Brazilian arm of the initiative.
Without the sponsorship of universities, the group should start by expanding the publication of articles by researchers in the country on the global page of The Conversation.
A team of journalists must curate the studies produced by Brazilian universities —USP, Unicamp, UnB, Unesp, UFBA and PUC-SP are among the partners for the production of content. The priority themes for the articles that must reach the global platform involve five themes: democracy, social inequality, environment, health and geopolitics.
The idea of ​​bringing the initiative to Brazil was born from an article rejected by the British version of The Conversation, says Félix, who is a journalist and holds a doctorate in longevity economics from USP.
“I tried to publish an article about the ministry of loneliness, created in the United Kingdom, and I heard from the publisher that they would look for British authors for that debate”, says Félix. “That’s when I thought of bringing the proposal to Brazil and offering that voice to Brazilian academics.”
