Two teams of 3rd-year Bachelor of Communication students have been selected to work with French and German diplomats to co-develop communication strategies for their science diplomacy initiatives.
Teams of students in the core Bachelor of Communication course, COMS 330 Communication in Context, presented original social media campaigns to the Embassies of Germany and France on two different initiatives: The HALO-South Mission, which will be launched in Christchurch in September 2025 by German and New Zealand scientific partners, and the One Ocean science Congress (3 to 6 June 2025), which is organised within the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3, 9 to 13 June 2025, in Nice, France) and to which the Embassy of France will be sending 25 New Zealand scientists.
Five student teams pitched their social media campaign ideas on the HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft) project, which aims to provide pressing knowledge about the relation between aerosols and clouds in the southern hemisphere. These findings will be extrapolated to a larger scale using satellite data and global climate modelling. Five other teams worked with the French diplomats to develop ideas and communications for One Ocean science Congress, with the goal is to spur action and implement SDG 14, which is the least funded of all Sustainable Development Goals.
The diplomatic juries picked two winning teams. The German Embassy selected the social media campaign designed by Joshua Meredith, Connor Johnston, Elias Redpath, Leah Hills, Madeleine Barrett and Ruby Riley (featured on the photo). The French Embassy selected the social media campaign designed by Alexandra Scully, Teina Kotua, Scarlett Neame, Kenna Devane and Sophia Wright. On May 16, the two winning teams met at UC with Deputy Ambassadors for the respective Embassies — Winnie Switakowski (the Embassy of Germany) and Vincent Gremeret (the Embassy of France) – and will continue to work with the embassies on their campaigns, and attend events later in the year where they will meet the scientists working on these projects.
COMS 330 is coordinated by Dr Tara Ross and the Global Communication module, in which students collaborated with embassies, is led by Prof Natalia Chaban.
