Resources for Members of the University

The Office of News and Public Affairs is your point of contact for all questions and concerns having to do with public relations work. The staff of the Office of News and Public Affairs has one goal: to portray your work in the best possible light. To accomplish this, we need your support.

Please let us know about news from your field and day-to-day activities at the university. This might include recent research findings, awards and distinctions, new academic programs, and interesting visiting scholars, researchers, or students. We will then work with you to find the right format to publish this information.

Important: Please be sure to communicate with the Office of News and Public Affairs with as much lead time as possible, and do not provide the information to individual media outlets without first coordinating it with the Office. As soon as the Office learns any news regarding Freie Universität from the media, we are unfortunately no longer able to issue a press release about that news item. That hampers the university in its efforts to engage in broad-based press and public relations work.

Sending Press Releases

We use press releases to keep journalists abreast of current events and news from the university. If you have a news item that might be interesting to the public, please contact the Office of News and Public Affairs, ideally with a draft text that can be used as a basis.

With the wealth of information that crosses the desks of editors at newspapers, news agencies, radio and TV stations every day, a press release must be written clearly, concisely, and in language that is easy to understand. This is the only way a text can attract journalists’ attention and have a chance of being picked up in the media.

We use your draft or suggestions to prepare a press text according to journalistic criteria. That text is then submitted to you for approval. Finally, we send it out to the media.

Our e-mail distribution list includes about 1,500 radio, TV, print, and online journalists within the region and beyond, alongside news agencies, editorial desks, and the German correspondents of foreign media outlets. For major stories, we also transmit the press release via the Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw) science and arts news service. Depending on the field, these items can reach up to several thousand readers. We also communicate about prominent scientific news, research findings, and events via the English-language news portal Alpha Galileo, which reaches more than 7,500 accredited journalists from 85 countries.

Please bear in mind that translating your news item into English, if necessary, and editing your suggested text according to journalistic standards both take time. Trade publications and journals and all non-daily media also plan their content well in advance, so invitations and notices of upcoming events should ideally go out at least three weeks in advance. That does, however, assume that we receive your draft text with sufficient lead time.

We are certainly able to send press releases on short notice if necessary. If, however, we receive short notice of upcoming scheduled events, we can no longer guarantee that the press text will be sent – particularly not in cases in which doing so would require that we postpone other publication requests received with adequate lead time.

Please be sure to send your proposed press release text to us as soon as possible.

Entries in the Calendar of Events

We operate a central Calendar of Events that provides an overview of all public events taking place at Freie Universität. Please let us know early on about your upcoming events. We are also happy to draft a press release about events featuring major news or public figures.

Organizing Press Conferences

For topics of particular public interest – such as important changes and new developments in university policies or prominent research findings – it may be worthwhile to invite journalists to attend a press meeting or press conference. We are happy to advise and support you in planning, organizing, and handling press meetings and press conferences.

Your Expertise in the Media

Upon request or through our List of Experts, we make our researchers’ expertise accessible to the media. Please let us know, if you would like to be included with your field of research in our list of experts available for interviews with journalists.

Other Information for the Media and the Public

In addition to press releases, we offer Topics for Journalists – a monthly selection of newsworthy contributions, features, and background reports – as a reference and stimulus for journalists’ own articles. Additionally, we report to the public six times a year with our supplement in the nationwide newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Please keep us up-to-date with news from your research areas so that we can find the right way to communicate your news to the media and the public.

Support in Creating Leaflets and Flyers

Do you wish to produce a leaflet, flyer, or poster about your institution or certain academic programs? We advise and support you in all matters of print production from text and photo editing, to layout and printing. Please send an e-mail to presse@fu-berlin.de.

The Corporate Design 2.0 of Freie Universität specifies the design of all visual communication: stationery, business cards, posters, flyers, booklets, invitations, certificates, and documents as well as the Internet presence of the university and its departments and institutes. Contact persons and information related to the visual identity guidelines and files for downloading (from logo to stationery) can be found here: www.fu-berlin.de/cd.

A translation guide (German-English) is intended to facilitate uniformity in terminology. It includes translations of key terms from the general university administration as well as the specific context of Freie Universität and serves as a general reference for English texts, whether printed or online.

For Online Editors

Once you have successfully completed the training for using the content management system to keep your website up-to-date, you may still have inquiries or need advice. Please feel free to refer to the Online Editoral Department.

Informational Material for Conferences and Visitors

Will you be attending a conference, or are you expecting visitors, and need informational material about Freie Universität Berlin? Take advantage of ordering the newly updated Short Portrait of Freie Universität. Our short movie presents Freie Universität’s history and profile. The videos are also available in Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Please direct all your inquiries to the Office of News and Public Affairs. We look forward to helping you!

• Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838-731 80
• Email: presse@fu-berlin.de