Successful Communicator
Jürgen Tautz has received the Communicator Award of the DFG "for the enduring, varied and original communication of his scientific studies" to the public (photo: Alice Natter).
The Würzburg bee researcher Jürgen Tautz has received the 2012 Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation. With this award, the Foundation honors Tautz' numerous activities with which he communicates his research findings to the public. The award is endowed with prize money of 50,000 euros.
His projects include the book "Phänomen Honigbiene" ("The Buzz about Bees"), the audiobook "Der Bien" (super-organism honeybee), a self-produced informative film about bees titled "Die Honigmacherinnen" (the honey producers), bee hives in retirement homes, countless presentations and of course the interactive study platform HOBOS in the Internet: There is hardly any means or medium of communication that the Würzburg bee researcher has not yet put to use in order to inform the general public on the results of his scientific studies of honey bees.
The Communicator Award
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has now honored him for this work with the "Communicator Award – Science Award of the Donors' Association". This award is given every year to scientists who have shown outstanding initiative in communicating their research findings to the public. The prize money is 50,000 euros.
The award winners are chosen by a jury consisting of communication experts, journalists, PR professionals and selected researchers. This year, a total of 20 researchers from all scientific fields applied for the Communicator Award or were recommended for it. Five candidates were shortlisted for the award and Jürgen Tautz prevailed in the end.
Tautz, behavioral biologist and research leader of the "BEEgroup" at the Biocenter of the University of Würzburg, has been honored "for the enduring, varied and original communication of his scientific studies and of his bee research in the media and public," reads the relevant press release of the DFG.
For many years, the new winner of the Communicator Award has been successful in reaching "diverse target groups with a remarkable number of presentations, articles in newspapers and journals, book publications or with his own bee audiobook and guided tours of the bee research station headed by him," he was praised in the laudatory speech.
His science book "Phänomen Honigbiene" ("The Buzz about Bees") has been translated into 17 languages. The Internet-based teaching and learning platform "HOneyBee Online Studies" (HOBOS) developed by Tautz in 2009 was specially mentioned by the jury as particularly original. With live streams and measured values from the beehive and its environment and with interactive teaching materials for all school types, HOBOS now offers globally accessible, interdisciplinary research findings about bees and encourages further exploration.
"I'm glad and grateful that I have been recommended for the 2012 Communicator Award and that I have been rated first by the commission. Furthermore, I consider this award as an inducement to advance the innovative teaching, learning and research platform HOBOS together with the University of Würzburg," says Tautz in his first reaction to today's announcement of the award decision.
About the person
Professor Jürgen Tautz (born in 1949) studied biology, geography and physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt from 1968 to 1973. After his doctorate in Zoology at the University of Konstanz, he first conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Canberra in Australia and at Stanford University in the United States. From 1983, he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Konstanz where he obtained his habilitation and served as acting chair of the department of behavioral biology from 1988. Since 1990, Jürgen Tautz has been teaching and researching at the Biocenter of the University of Würzburg.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz, T: (0931) 31-84319, e-mail: 
tautz(at)biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
Link
19.03.2012, 15:28 Uhr