Media
Media Coverage
Find out which of our stories have been making local, national & international news headlines
News of a research paper led by Dr Ryan McGuire of IGFS and co-authored by prominent UK campaigner Lord Donald Curry of Kirkharle, arguing that investment in the quality of UK soils and peatlands could significantly boost the de-carbonisation of agriculture, generated widespread coverage in both mainstream and agricultural media.
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International research in which our colleague Professor Aedin Cassidy participated - which evidenced a link between foods containing flavonoids and a reduced mortality risk for sufferers of Parkinson's disease - gained widespread, global coverage including Science Daily; Asian News International; EurekAlert and Medical XPress.
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The biggest hitter of the year so far, coverage of our research into feeding cows seaweed to reduce methane emissions, led by Prof Sharon Huws, garnered over 350 items of national and international coverage, including TIME magazine, AOL, Yahoo! Canada, The Independent, The Times, Mail Online, BBC Radio 4 and The Grocer.
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News that Dr Julia Sigwart and team discovered a new breed of oyster and named it, plus launched a campaign to protect it and other important marine life in Malaysia, picked up solid coverage including Press Association, Yahoo!Canada, ITV, the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News as well as media outlets in Malaysia.
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News that Dr Katerina Theodoridou's research into whether feeding ruminant livestock willow silage could mitigate against methane and ammonia emmissions, a project carried out in partnership with AFBI NI, picked up local, national and international coverage including the Farmers' Guardian, Agriland, the Herald Ghana, indianarrative.com and Feed Navigator.
The news that Professor Chris Elliott, the founder of IGFS, received a prestigious 'Thought Leader' award from Agilent Technologies received solid local and national media coverage (47 items) including including in the Belfast Telegraph, Farm Week and Bloomberg Markets.
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Dr Claire McEvoy's ongoing work to investigate the links between diet and healthy ageing, particularly brain health, has been picked up by local and national press. In this latest project, she and PhD student Rebecca Townsend will lead the QUB end of the Brain Health and Lifestyle Survey, conducted in partnership with Trinity College Dublin, Age NI, Institute of Public Health (Ireland) and Brain Health Scotland.
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The news that IGFS was designated an International Collaborating Centre by the International Atomic Energy Agency - a branch of the wider United Nations - picked up significant media attention. Our welcoming of plans for a veterinary school in NI also got strong pick-up in regional press.
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The media leader this month was research by Prof Ilias Kyriazakis on how British pig farming has reduced its carbon footprint by up to 40% in the past 20 years, which received widespread coverage in the local, national and international agri media. Read More for details.
Also widely covered this month was research from Prof Moira Dean and Dr Fiona Lavelle.
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This month the big story came out of research led by Dr Fiona Lavelle on the effects of the Covid19 pandemic and associated lockdowns on how we eat, cook and shop for food. This attracted national & international coverage including the Irish Times, New Food magazine and India Education Diary. Dr Lavelle also wrote a corresponding article for The Conversation UK.
Also, a new project to research the use of mass spectrometry to develop a new, rapid test for bovine mastitis, spearheaded by Dr Simon Cameron, attracted widespread coverage in the agri media, locally, nationally and internationally.
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The big hitter this month was research from Prof Gary Hardiman and Dr Willian da Silveira that establishes a new link between geriatric health symptoms observed in astronauts and damage to the mitochondrial function of human cells - and how targeted nutrition could help mitigate these issues.
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Our research into popular herb sage - which revealed at least one in four samples to be fraudulent - gained widespread media coverage including the Daily Mail, BBC Radio 4, Yahoo!, The Conversation UK & MSN.
21 Oct, New Food Fraud in herbs and spices hasn’t vanished - New Food Magazine
23 Oct, The Daily Mail Herby fraud: One in four samples of sage contain the leaves of other plants, study finds | Daily Mail Online
23 Oct, Food Navigator How safe is your sage? Study uncovers high levels of adulteration (foodnavigator.com)
27 Nov, Radio 4, (25mins in) https://bbc.in/36nbXt3
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This month, a story about a shared research project between IGFS and agri technology firm, Devenish, got solid pick-up in the farming press.
In what's believed to be the world's first longitudinal study into the link between naturally occuring 'mycotoxins' and poultry performance, a strong link was found between even low levels of the toxin and performance.
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News of IGFS' latest commercial food-diagnostics spinout, Cibus Analytic, hit local headlines this month, Read More for details.
Dr Danielle McCarthy also saw great success from her article for The Conversation - it quickly rose to the Top 10 most-read articles on The Conversation from Queen's University.
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This month saw longtime IGFS supporter (and a member of the IGFS Industry Advisory Board) and NI agrifood industry leader, Declan Billington, honoured with a professorship at Queen's University for his work on Brexit negotiations and furthering partnerships between the agrifood industry and academic research.
The Irish News, 10 March http://www.irishnews.com/business/2020/03/10/news/top-businessman-and-agri-food-expert-honoured-by-queen-s-1862874/
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Dr Claire McEvoy and Professor Jayne Woodside's research into the relationship between diet and disease in India - and the lack of data at a national level on the same - picked up great international coverage, mainly in India, with over 70 items of coverage including the Indian Express, India.com, Times of India and the United News of India.
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We saved the best for last! The award for biggest IGFS media sensation of 2019 goes to Dr Brian Green, Dr William Crowe and Prof Chris Elliott, who found that not all processed meat carries the same cancer risk. That finding picked up over 370 items of coverage including The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Irish Times, Newswise (US), IndiaTimesPost, Medical.net (Australia), Yahoo Singapore, RTE Radio and BBC Radio Ulster.
Dr Jonny Dalzell's fun explainer on mistletoe and PhD student Joshua Twining's work on pine martens also did well.
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The biggest hitter media-wise for November - and a record-breaker generally - was coverage of Dr Hansjoerg Kunc's meta-analysis of noise pollution and the threat it poses to more than 100 species - across land, sea and air.
It garnered sensational coverage - too many to list here - around 350 items of local, national and international news stories including in the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, BBC Radio 4, BBC Inside Science, Yahoo News Australia, South China Morning Post, France 24 and the Kuwait Times.
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This month there was great interest in the news that Professor Jayne Woodside and Dr Brian Green had each been awarded highly prestigious funding for international nutrition research in the shape of US-Ireland Awards. The story did very well in internal comms and social media but was also picked up by some external outlets, expand out to see the details
Read more to see what else got published in October
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Media coverage for September was dominated by news of the genome sequencing of the wild brown trout - research carried out by a team co-ordinated by the Sanger Institute, which included Professor Paulo Prodohl. See below for highlights and read more to get full coverage and other items of IGFS making headlines this month
EurekAlert!, 4 Sept https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/wtsi-btg090419.php
Alpha Galileo, 4 Sept https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Print/itemId/182490/userId/-1/cultureCode/en-GB
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The IGFS hit for August - traditionally a quiet month for media - was Dr Mary Baxter's fascinating think-piece for The Conversation website, Finding Signs of Happiness in Chickens, which got great traction on social media, as well as being picked up elsewhere. Read more to see what else from IGFS was getting attention this month
Yahoo.com, 1 Aug https://bit.ly/31AAu8t
PopSci.com, 2 Aug https://www.popsci.com/chicken-emotion-happiness-animal-welfare/
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Dr Julia Sigwart certainly won the media-coverage race with her research indicating that the scaly-foot sea snail is now considered endangered, published in Nature. It went on to receive widespread international and national media coverage - too numberous to list here - 220 items, and still trickling through - but including The Conversation, Forbes, The Smithsonian, BBC World Service, The Times, The Daily Mail and International Business Times India.
Read more to see what else caught the zeitgeist in July
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The big hit for this month was Dr Gareth Arnott's research into birdsong and how it may be being disrupted by manmade noise pollution - this garnered 44 items (and counting) of local, national and international coverage, too much to list, including the Guardian, BBC Radio 4, the Irish Times, the Daily Mail, BBC Inside Science and CBBC Newsround
Also making headlines this month was the launch of the AgriPlas lab at IGFS. Read more to see all details of this and other stories
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By far the biggest media story IGFS generated in May was its Annual Lecture, delivered by Sir Tim Smit of the Eden Project. Interest in what Sir Tim had to say was huge, not least because of plans to creat a 'mini Eden' in Northern Ireland. The item gained 85 news stores in local and national press, including AOL.com, BT.com, BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Foyle, the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish Farmers' Journal - and the whole of the front page on the Derry Journal!
Read more to see what else caught the media imagination in May, including the Balmoral Show
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A big-hitter this month was Dr Claire McEvoy whose research into links between a heart-healthy diet and brain function in middle age was covered internationally, picking up over 50 items of coverage including the New York Times, AOL.com, EurekAlert!, BBC Radio Foyle, the Daily Mail, Scottish Herald & The Sun.
Meanwhile, Professor Andy Meharg's ongoing research into arsenic in rice - specifically, the discovery that parboiling could reduce arsenic levels - scooped over 150 items of coverage including BBC Radio Foyle, AOL, Yahoo!, ScienceDaily, EurekAlert!, Newswise, Daily Mirror & NDTV India. Read more for other mentions of IGFS
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If you would like to explore the potential for media coverage of your research, contact IGFS Comms Officer Una Bradley on u.bradley@qub.ac.uk