Workshop with Prof. Dr. Tobias Gostomzyk

Can a photograph be used without further ado under a Creative Commons licence? What needs to be borne in mind regarding AI-generated images? How does legally compliant citation work on social media? Are drone shots permitted on campus? And are publicly funded scientists allowed to make deliberately sensationalised statements about their own research findings?

Anyone who communicates about science makes decisions with legal implications on an almost daily basis. This applies to working with photographs, music and texts alike. Often, there is little time for a thorough legal review – and it is not uncommon for the hope that ‘everything will be fine’ to take the place of a sound legal assessment.

The interactive workshop ‘Communicating science – but in a legally compliant way!’ aims to provide the knowledge needed to identify typical risks at an early stage and make well-informed decisions in day-to-day work. Participants will explore the key legal principles using illustrative real-life cases.

In the process, common assumptions will also be critically examined: Do seven people pictured actually automatically constitute a group? Is it really permissible to refer to a well-known researcher's new book?

Participants are also encouraged to bring their own questions from their day-to-day professional lives so that these can be discussed collectively and assessed from a legal perspective.

Tobias Gostomzyk is a professor of media law at the Institute of Journalism at TU Dortmund. He also teaches public information and communications law at the Faculty of Law at Ruhr University Bochum. He has been involved with the Federal Association for University Communication since 2013, primarily as a speaker at its annual conferences. In addition, he regularly runs workshops on the law governing scientific and university communication for higher education institutions.

About this workshop series

This event is part of a series on science communication at JGU. If you attend four or more events in the series, you will receive the “WissKomm-Basics” certificate. All events are automatically open to participants from the RMU partner universities.

Through the Open Science and Science Communication project (COM Department), JGU is establishing a campus-wide advisory and professional development programme on science communication. Researchers and staff from all disciplines and at all levels of expertise benefit from support services and programmes designed to develop their skills. The project thus expands on existing science communication initiatives in Rhineland-Palatinate (WissKomm Academy) and at the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU). 

Contact: scicom@uni-mainz.de