What has Titan achieved?
The purpose of Titan is to highlight research at the Faculty. By doing so we will contribute to a more informed public debate, make our researchers more visible in the media, taking pride in our workplace, improve the reputation of the University – which in turn can result in more students applying to our study programmes, make better use of tax money, and more money to the university. Our target groups are influencers (such as politicians, organizations, research funders etc.), people interested in science and technology, students and researchers.
In two years we have written almost 500 news articles about research results at the MN faculty and a couple of hundred smaller news articles about prize winners, grant allocations and other events.
We have 13 bloggers who have written 178 posts in 2017 about a variety of topics such as how a kayak ride can teach you how water freezes, digital audio broadcasting and a peak into the future of materials technology. Titan has roughly 14 000 subscribers to their weekly newsletter and about 3000 followers on Facebook. Our news articles have been published in about twenty different publications in addition to our English news articles being picked up by foreign media.
Why the name Titan?
When we sat down to develop the Faculty’s news site we wanted to give it a short, cool name that gives associations to science, technology and innovation. Titan does that. According to Greek mythology, the Titans where ascendants of Gaia (the Earth) and Uranus (the sky) who ruled in the legendary Golden Age. They were immortal giants with unbelievable strength.
Titan, or titanium, is a chemical element number 22 in the periodic table, which is a metal. See the blog post our rector, Svein Stølen, previously wrote about Titan (only in Norwegian). Titan is silver colored, strong as steel and light like a feather, and it does not rust. It is used in a variety of devices, such as watches, glasses, bicycles, ships, airplanes and in hip joints. Titanium compounds are used in everything from paint to sunscreen.
Titan is also the name of Saturn’s largest moon. It is also the only known natural satellite that has its own atmosphere as well as the the only known object, in addition to the Earth, with bodies of fluids on the surface.
Titan is a metal that provides many opportunities. Norway is already one of the world’s largest exporters of titanium in oxide form. New technology can help Norway to step into an exclusive group of titanium producers.
What do we want your input on?
My goal is to help reveal all the hidden treasures at our faculty. We need to make sure that our faculty’s role in society when it comes to education and research is even more widely known in the public than it is today. We need to communicate the importance of our research results, and that our students by completing their educational degree are well equipped for a career in both new and existing businesses in the private and public sector.
To develop our news site further, we want your input on how we can do this. We also encourage everyone who has a good news story to contact Titan’s news desk. They will help you conveying exciting research results or other newsworthy stories from the faculty that can be of interest outside your own department.
Titan is our very own news site and we want your opinion on how to make it even better than it is today!
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