Communicating your research
A lot of published, peer-reviewed academic research has a relatively limited readership. But most researchers are keen for their work to be read, not only by colleagues, but also practice-based specialists, relevant organisations, and the general public. Many researchers hope that their work will have an impact well beyond the academy.
Learning to communicate your work to different audiences – including people outside of your academic discipline – takes practice and is a core skill for contemporary researchers. It can facilitate knowledge exchange and get your research read in places where you feel it’s most relevant.
How can you communicate your research?
Communicating your research can take many forms – from quick and simple to more involved. Some common examples include:
- Presenting your work at academic and/or industry conferences
- Participating in Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) or Visualise Your Thesis (VYT)
- Using social media to alert your contacts to a new publication
- Engaging with people on social media about your work
- Writing a blog post
- Setting up your own website or blog
- Writing submissions to government inquiries that fall in your area of expertise
- Producing reports or grey literature to explain your findings to a wider audience
- Media engagement, e.g. writing opinion pieces (for newspapers, magazines or online publications); offering expert commentary; making yourself available for interviews (on podcasts, radio or television)
Consider your audience
When you communicate about your research it is always important to keep in mind who you imagine your intended audience to be and to think about why they should be interested in what you’re saying. What do you think they want to know and why? There are always multiple ways of relaying the same research findings that will help to engage different groups of people.
Your writing skills around clarity and conciseness remain important, but you might also consider things like changing the kind of background information you provide, shifting the emphasis, paring back niche terminology, or reflecting on the ‘hook’ you use to explain your research in various contexts.
Further resources
The RED Program has a range of workshops that can help you build skills around communicating your research. These include sessions on research communication, pitching, conferences, social media, blogging, writing opinion pieces and more.
Ruth Albertyn, Ten tips for publishing out of a thesis