The 2^nd edition of the Conference “Communicating European Research 2005”, hosted by the European Commission’s DG for Research took place in Brussels on 14 and 15 November. The aim of the event was to share best practice and to define strategies to improve communication, outreach and dissemination of research results to the public and the press at a European level. Communication, a clear priority for the Barroso Commission, is essential in order to overcome a widespread lack of interest towards Community action in this field. Commissioner for Research, Janek Potoènik, underlined this in his opening speech by saying that “researchers are an excellent example of the added value of working together over the country borders […]. I strongly believe that European research must serve as a vehicle for reaching out to the public and it is our collective responsibility to ensure that it does so”. Some of the Commission’s projects for the improvement of scientific communication at EU level were presented by Commissioner Potoènik during the opening session: EU-funded scientific audiovisual co-productions; better use of radio broadcasting; tools to support training of journalists in EU science issues; and merging the Cordis newsletter and research section of the Europa website into one single Science Portal for news in this field. Communicating European Research 2005 Website