Featured Experts: Dr. Miriam Mueller-Rensch, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
Dr. Miriam Mueller-Rensch is a regular contributor to national media. She is also involved in policy advisor/political consultancy.
Fields of expertise: Middle East (Arab Peninsula), Foreign Policy, Cold War History, Nationalism, Political and Religious Ideologies, Jihadi-Salafism, and Terrorism Systems.
Contact info: miriam.mueller-rensch@fh-erfurt.de
Phone: +49-40-41409778
EUCAnet invited Miriam M. Müller-Rensch to share some tips and advice about her outreach expertise:
“Be always well prepared for any media appearance. This includes: 1. Confidence: You have invested a lot of time – your expertise deserves the media space which is given to you. 2. Modesty: Acknowledge other opinions and expertise! You can never know everything there is to know about your topic. Acknowledge perspectives from outside academia: How does the public debate look like? Who are the main stakeholders? Who might oppose your position? 3. Clarity: Be short! Make sure that you can bring across your most important thoughts by connecting them to no more than three major key points. However, don’t offer platitudes – strive for transparent, critical and nuanced analysis. 4. Explicitness: As opposed to academic debate, you oftentimes have to take a political stance or at least offer normative framing. Dare to have an opinion, while leaving room for controversy.”
“Ideally, academia offers intellectual space to comprehend the world and its challenges beyond political and economic pressures and day-to-day quarrels. Make use of this wonderful gift and share your insights, ideas and alternative perspectives with media representatives and outlets to uncover the agenda of interest-driven individuals and groups. You can be one of many independent, critical voices boosting peoples’ confidence and motivation to also contribute to public debate and face current socio-political challenges in the local contexts of their daily lives.”
For more information about the media appearances and contributions of our academic experts, please visit the following page.
Miriam-Mueller
