No More Pottering About
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Workshop on research impact, research communication, and public engagement for FEARS 2018 (research symposium of Faculty of Engineering at Ghent University)
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No More Pottering About
- 1. gaining momentum. But as a researcher you are already running around, trying to find the time to get through everything that is on your plate. Help is at hand. Let Esther show you how you can embed your research communication into your day-to-day reality without feeling like someone put you under the Cruciatus spell. In true wizarding style she will conjure up tips on treasuring your impact as a golden snitch, maintaining your digital identity, telling a cracking story, sending out little owls and
- 3. 1. Be proud to represent your house 2. Look beyond the grounds of Hogwarts 3. Impact is your golden snitch 4. Invest in a good set of quills 5. Who’s got your back? 6. Don’t become a Death Eater 7. Find your Patronus spell 8. Cherish little owls
- 5. Science is based on building on, reusing and openly criticising the body of scientific knowledge. Panton Principles Publish or p Be visible or
- 11. o Improve effectiveness and sustainability of policy and activities by ‘third parties’ o Improve social cohesion and well-being o Enlarge economic prosperity and robustness o Improve quality of life and cultural wealthFor science o Continuity of funding o Trust of citizens o Touchstone For you o Early stage feedback, improve focus/methodology o Relevance: importance, timing, scope o Participation o Personal skills
- 15. What will resonate with other people? CENTRAL IMAGE POINT of CONNECTION Not too much: amount, details, nuance NARRATIVE
- 16. Powell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- 19. Communication/PR Office Unit for Science Communication Research communication (incl. scholarly communication) Faculty communication officer Dedicated person within research group/department External partners WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY
- 24. accessible, comprehensive list of your publications online? Do your online profiles give a brief but comprehensive view of you as an academic? Do you want to use different profiles for different purposes? Are some services more suitable for your discipline than others? Are more of your colleagues using a
- 27. engaging with social media? What is your communication/outreach strategy? Consider producing social media content as a normal part of your (working) life Develop a sense of the advantages and limitations of each different platform Be realistic about the time available to you. Know who can help you. Be aware of your digital footprint. Invest in visibility. Re-use content but adapt. Get your timing and story right. Adaptation of Top Tips for academics on blogging and social media by Mark
- 29. Short messages (tweets): 140/280 characters (excl. pic/gif & reply) Follow and be followed Timeline or feed with tweets Hashtags & handles Tweet & retweet
- 30. PROF. DEVELOPME NT SOCIAL PROF. DEVELOPME INVOLVEME NT DISSEMINATI ON NETWORK RESOURCES CONFERENC ES
- 31. o Your institutional affiliation o Your research interests o Other accounts you’re involved with o Your personal interests o Hashtags you contributed to o An additional website o Picture (incl. banner) BIO + PICTURES SETTINGS
- 32. FOLLOW LISTEN (RE)TWEET INTERACT - ENGAGE TIMING VISIBILITY THICK TWEETS Mention – Hashtag VISUAL 70 – 30 rule x 2
- 33. try to stick to it Management of expectations: bio & content/activity to match Tweet ‘thickly’ and according to the rules Build a network and include influencers Social medium = interact Authenticity, niceness, integrity, and common sense
- 36. Understanding of realities/nuance s of science Teaching experience Closer scrutiny of the literature Richer, true-to- life writing about science Knowing where the stories are Open to editing Used to deadlines Access to jobs at trade publications and agencies Used to hard work and making things work Abundance of ideas Networking Credibility with academics
- 38. ACADEMIC SWEET SPOT NETWORK REAL IMPACT
- 39. Esther De Smet – Research Department @ResearchUGentThank you, Warner Brothers and the internet, for the illustrations!
Editor's Notes
- You have been seated or should I say – sorted into little groups. These are your housemates. Introduce yourselves to each other: your research discipline + your favourite fictional character
- Your first lesson is to take pride in what you do as a scientist. You have the power to change the world – even if it doesn’t seem that obvious to other or even to you.
- But with this great power comes great responsibility. Don’t lock up science in a chamber of secrets! This has been packed up over the years into the catchphrase …
- So in your work try to be as open as possible. Share your ideas, results and data with the scientific community – and convince others to do so as well. So change the catchphrase to …[CLICK] And support the open science movement
- There are two elements to open science: the technological/operational aspects (OA, open data) but It is also an attitude Knowledge is ideally ‘socially robust’ which means it does not solely serves your small scientific family And it is not just scientists who have all the knowledge
- And getting out of this Hogwarts that is your university is also important for your future career *show of hands* who wants to be a professor?
- Start caring about the impact of your research. Understand what science may mean to society. But also why it should matter to be vocal about the importance/impact of science for science itself and you.
- Think about what you might do to make your research easily discoverable and accessible to other audiences besides your peers. Look at how other people outside the scientific and academic realm might influence your work and your attitude. What are the ways in which you can interact with them? How approachable are you? How can you be at the service of society?
- *** Discuss in group ***
- Once you got a grip on what the impact of your research might be You should invest in trying to communicate with impact One technique for this is storytelling – using narrative structure
- You must accept that science might not interest everyone. It even scares some people. Also remember that details important to you may not resonate with other people – even other researchers. Is there anything in your research which may though? When considering this question, be honest with yourself, and try to embody someone else who hasn’t spent years toiling over your niche subject area. Resist the temptation of covering too much of your research. Don’t get bogged down in the details. Try to avoid unnecessary nuance.
- Storytelling is universal The Hero’s Journey is based upon the idea that all heroes and mythological characters proceed through a similar development throughout a trilogy or series. This doesn’t only apply to fictional characters. Movie directors often use these concepts in Hollywood when creating an attractive plot line.
- Storytelling is essentially about touching the hearts and heads of your audience (in that order!): making them laugh or cry, inviting them to join you on your journey, challenging them to think. It’s about making them care so be authentic. It’s about making a lasting impression and letting your passion inspire them. It’s about bringing in visuals to add strength and imagination to your tale. In short: it’s about making an impact. * Discuss * Which storytelling device do you use to about your research?
- In engagement and communication as in research it is important to build up a sturdy network. You only have so much time and energy so investing it wisely is key. Look for meaningful encounters – and not just the usual suspects. Think: who can help you have a bigger impact? As a PhD student it is important to have role models. Think who this might be for you.
- Identify partners in your quest starting within your own university: *** show of hands – who knows about/uses these? *** So make sure these people know about you, your expertise, and your engagement preferences/talents
- OUTSIDE YOUR ORGANISATION Also identify who else might benefit from your science engagement: from your research: general public and specific target groups from your communication about your research: (specific) media Interesting exercise: identify the stakeholders of your research (both positive and negative) *** table exercise *** post-its
- Lesson 6 reminds us of the fact that when it comes to those tools it pays off to evolve and step into the future. So get with the times and don’t become a Death Eater. Start with discovering your online identity and then caring about it and aim at becoming a ‘networked scholar’.
- Writing for Research (March 2014) https://medium.com/advice-and-help-in-authoring-a-phd-or-non-fiction/are-you-an-academic-hermit-6d7ae5a0f16a *** very unscientific Quiz about digital behaviour *** How many people looking for info online? 70% How many scholars without online contact details: 35% How many scientific papers are published each year? 1.8 million – this doubles every nine years! How many researchers think they should probably do more to promote their research online? 78% If researchers do use online media to make professional info publicly available, how many put data sets online? 15% (published) 7% (unpublished) (Both online survey Piirus September 2014) How much of Ghent Uni Biblio is open access? 30% What is the world’s largest non-scholarly referrer of DOIs? Wikipedia How many new Wikipedia articles per minute? 6 How many researchers on Twitter (Priem 2012): 1/40 – 2,5%
- “Central to your attitude as a networked scholar is your identity, and in this case we focus on your online identity - defined as ‘the extent to which others can identify you online as a scholar’. This is why it is critical to become aware of your online presence and to shape and maintain this presence.” Digital shadow versus footprint The best way to drown out content about yourself that you may not like is to upload content of your choice.
- Assessing and improving your online presence Let these questions guide you along. Tip: make sure you use the platforms that your university has on offer. They often got better SEO than individual initiatives. Number 1: keep your academic repository up to date and use this as your starting point. Also remember the world outside academia: it might pay off to create a LinkedIn profile in which you link to your repository.
- Lesson 7 is all about finding your own patr
- Although it is a big investment and there are some definite challenges, there are great benefits to integrating social media into your research – not just as a way to communicate but also as a means to become a better scholar. Social media offers you the means to interact directly with a broader audience – often without ‘corporate interference’. Although it can be great fun and many of the social media look flighty (eg. half-life of a tweet is 18 minutes) it should not be taken lightly but approached in a strategic and professional manner. It’s all about finding the right balance: Not overthinking it but using it to your advantage Getting into the spirit of sharing and interacting while keeping focus in your own research and not losing yourself in procrastination Giving it a natural place in your time management and approaching it so you feel comfortable with it
- Bio: important! Have a look at yours > management of expectations Settings: more is good at the start
- Follow: Twitter etiquette does not require that you follow someone just because they follow you, but following someone is a way of indicating your presence to them. (Re)Tweet: don’t start with @ - reply as thread – retweet with quote Engage: follow up! Engage influencers Remember storytelling lessons! Mixture of about 30% chatter and 70% content is seen as a golden standard. Doesn’t have to be all original – again 30/70 Timing: get to know your audience Visibility: advertise your presence
- Tweet your thesis – remember impact and storytelling
- Research communication and science outreach are special skills It’s important that you discover what you’re really good at
- And that combination of PhD and public engagement/research communication may just give you that extra edge! Doing these things brings you into contact with potential employers You have skills that employers look for
- ACADEMIC SWEET SPOT Better understanding the impact of your research and describing it leads to more succesful grant proposals. Promoting your publications and work, increases the chance of people seeing them and citing them. Or connecting their research with yours. NETWORKING Reaching out might offer professional perspectives outside academia. Broadly communicating about your research creates opportunities for partnerships (and thus funding) to might have remained hidden. REAL IMPACT Sharing your research leads to more multidisciplinarity and more efficient innovation. Collaboration and coproduction brings real solutions to small and grand challenges. Putting your scientific passion on stage increases your standing as a public intellectual and establishes you as an academic expert. From my idealistic view, it simplies makes you a better researcher but it also makes sure that the general public and the powers that be keep supporting science and providing funding.