Executive Summary
Long-term growth of the research enterprise requires effective, strategic communication about the value of university-led research. With federal funding growth stagnating, universities must appeal to a broader set of stakeholders, such as corporate entities and philanthropic donors. These newer and growing sources of funding often have different interests, priorities, and levels of understanding of university research initiatives.
Chief Research Officers (CROs) are often the primary advocate for the research enterprise, and they may find themselves overwhelmed by the marketing and communications challenges. While they recognize the importance of their role in improving research communications, they want and need to have more effective tools and tactics for doing so.
To support and improve research communications, CROs must execute on three core imperatives:
- Build staff capabilities and coordination
- Cultivate faculty engagement
- Optimize communications channels
This publication from the University Research Forum offers thirteen tactics for executing on each imperative.
Building staff capabilities and coordination
Decentralized structures and dispersed communication efforts often hinder the ability of staff to optimize the timing, messaging, content, and consistency of their outcomes. Therefore, an important first step in improving research communications efforts is organizing and training communications staff so that they can better support faculty and the institution. By creating opportunities for communications staff to collaborate across campus, they can more easily source stories and coordinate news releases and communications efforts to reach a wider audience. Appointing communications staff to specific topic areas can also help them build relationships with faculty and readily identify promising stories. Institutions can also provide research communicators with templates and resources to reduce their workloads while also ensuring consistent messaging and promoting the university brand.
Cultivating faculty engagement
When faculty are strong communicators, they can be a valuable asset to the research enterprise. However, faculty are not always effective at communicating their research to the general public and may not see the value of engaging in research communications efforts. CROs should articulate the importance and value of faculty research communications in order to boost engagement. CROs and their staff should also provide faculty with interactive training to enhance their communications skills and develop their confidence when speaking with the media. Furthermore, CROs can leverage the particularly skilled communicators to handle more media interactions and to encourage and help train faculty peers.
Optimizing communication channels
In addition to supporting staff and cultivating faculty engagement, CROs also should consider how to best optimize the actual research communications the university distributes through various channels. For each communication, it is important to select the appropriate timing, content, and channels that relate to the research communications goals they hope to achieve. Furthermore, research communications should take a two-pronged approach by developing targeted communications campaigns that send specific, key messages to specific audiences at specific times, while also maintaining an ongoing presence through a research website, social media, digital content, and research-related events. CROs and their staff should also measure the outcomes and return on investment of specific communications strategies so that they can adjust their approach and investment accordingly.
Introduction: The case for contemporary research communication
Effective research communications today are broad in scope. While it remains critical to optimize all of the traditional ways researchers communicate in academia, increasingly, universities need to focus on expanding their communication efforts in nontraditional ways.
In addition to academics, the audience now includes the public at large, philanthropic donors, legislators, and potential corporate partners. As federal funding stagnates, these entities are potentially lucrative sources for funding. Similarly, the metrics of success should not only be grant dollars and publications but also should include “altmetrics,” such as social media followers and email click-through rates. Furthermore, the articulation of the potential impact of the research needs to go beyond the research discipline and tie research to broader social and economic issues. It is also critical to communicate concisely and in plain English terms.
Taken together, the goal is not just to convince peers of the value of research but to convince everyone.
Building staff capabilities and coordination
Tactic 1: Campaign-based templates
The University of Minnesota (UMN) opted to devote significant attention to unifying communications efforts across campus in 2006 when they launched the “Driven to Discover” campaign. By unifying communications, UMN could ensure consistent messaging and branding.
In order to ensure consistency and foster widespread use across campus, the University of Minnesota designed easy-to-use templates that faculty and communications staff could use to promote research.
The University of Minnesota’s “Driven to Discover” campaign has proved successful and popular. An impressive 71% of faculty and staff are aware of the campaign, and more than 50% of students, faculty, and staff felt more favorable toward and knowledgeable about the university as a result of the campaign. Faculty and staff have embraced the campaign, with 15 of 17 colleges integrating the campaign into their communications efforts.
Tactic 2: Purpose-driven collaboration forums
In order to effectively articulate the value of university research, CROs and other institutional leaders should build bridges across all campus communications staff.
Similar to many other institutions, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) had many research communicators located across campus, but they were not truly collaborating. Illinois recognized the need to facilitate collaboration and therefore organized a “Research Communications Council.”
This was an informational meeting series that included research communicators across campus (40-50) who met every two months. When Illinois first began this meeting series, it attempted to use a free lunch to incentivize attendance. However, as most institutions quickly realize, this is an insufficient means of promoting true collaboration. Instead, Illinois thought about what they could offer that would truly be valuable for attendees, eventually settling on professional development opportunities as a means of educating staff, encouraging attendance and engagement, and promoting collaboration.
Tactic 3: Beat reporting
A major challenge is sourcing stories and building relationships with faculty researchers. To better source stories, the University of WisconsinMadison has utilized a “beat reporting” model. Each member of the four-person research communications staff (one director and three writers) is assigned specialization areas by disciplines. The staff then cover these “beats,” working with individual departments to source and write stories that are published through campus newsletters, via social media, and in the alumni magazine.
Beat reporting offers communications staff a number of benefits:
- Â Builds rapport with skeptical faculty
- Â Finds breakthrough stories in complicated fields
- Â Helps avoid public relations crises
Tactic 4: Faculty feedback protocols
Addressing faculty concerns about media misrepresentation and creating opportunities for them to build relationships with communications staff are critical steps for successful research communications efforts. At California State University San Marcos, staff developed a faculty-media communications protocol that standardizes processes across campus and provides clear directions for faculty and staff.
This process includes four critical steps:
- When faculty member or university is contacted by the media, the office handles coordination.
- Office staff meet face-to-face with faculty to develop talking points and practice interviewing.
- Faculty are in full control, with the support of the office as they interact with media.
- Final media articles are reviewed by faculty for accuracy; office staff help adjust language to be reader-friendly and compelling.
Cultivating faculty engagement
Tactic 5: Faculty media spotlight
To engage faculty in research communication and media interactions, CROs should make it clear to them that they value these efforts. CROs can spotlight faculty media interactions and communications efforts in a multitude of ways:
- Incorporate articles into internal research magazine
- Call out on social media (e.g., retweets, posts)
- Include media achievements in research newsletters
- Create monthly or annual awards recognizing successful research communication
It is critical that CROs and their staff then analyze trends in faculty communications and media mentions over time, assessing what types of communications and outlets have proved popular and examining the outcomes of communications efforts. They also should follow up with faculty who have engaged with the media to get a better sense of the long-term outcomes and benefits of the interactions.
Tactic 6: Immersive training
In addition to articulating the value of faculty media interactions and communications efforts, CROs and their staff should provide faculty with dedicated communications training.
Duke University has developed an immersive training program for faculty. Duke increased faculty attendance, as compared to its previous interdepartmental training seminars, by offering full-day seminars delivered within colleges and departments. The full-day, interactive training was designed to prepare faculty to effectively utilize visuals and social media to communicate about their research, as well as to communicate in a jargon-free manner.
Tactic 7: Faculty leader fellowship
CROs and their staff should leverage the faculty who are already strong communicators by providing them with additional training to cultivate their skills and have them help engage and train other faculty.
Since the University of Denver’s top-funded researchers were among the small portion of faculty engaging in research communications efforts, they opted to develop a program focused on identifying candidates for more intensive communications trainings. The resulting Public Impact Fellows Program is an exclusive training program led by top communicators and communication experts that includes monthly discussions and biennial workshops.
While the Public Impact Fellows Program was initially intended as a pilot program, University of Denver leadership was so impressed with the program proposal that they awarded 30% more funding and commissioned the launch of a full-scale program instead of a simple pilot.
Optimizing communications channels
Tactic 8: Targeted campaigns
Institutions can use targeted campaigns to a achieve specific goals by effectively sending specific messages to key audiences.
After conducting both an internal and external reputational analysis, Washington State University (WSU) administrators launched a targeted campaign in the Seattle area. Despite stakeholder interest in several of the institution’s research focus areas and the significant impact WSU research has on the regional economy, stakeholders in that area were unaware of WSU’s research efforts and contributions.
Using this reputational analysis, WSU identified the types of stories and messages that resonated with different stakeholder groups and developed a corresponding communications strategy. Specifically, WSU carefully tailored the messaging, channels, and audience.
Tactic 9: Website enhancement audit
In addition to targeted campaigns designed to send strategic messages to specific audiences at key points in time, institutions should also bolster their ongoing communications presence. One of the key channels for doing so is the research website, which frequently serves as the first introduction to a university’s research.
In order to assess how effectively institutions are utilizing their research websites to communicate about research, the University Research Forum conducted an audit of 50 randomly selected research universities’ research websites. The audit showed that institutions are not maximizing their effectiveness. As a result, the University Research Forum developed a list of the 14 most valuable research website features, based on website usability principles and an examination of best-in-class research websites.
14 most valuable research website features:
- First result in Google
- Visible link on institutional home page
- Matching Google and home page links
- Visually engaging
- Research-specific social media links
- Embedded social media feed
- Research enterprise metrics
- Highlights large-scale initiatives and/or expertise
- Compelling and jargon-free research stories
- Â Communicates broader impact of research
- Â Contact information and/or instructions for media
- Â Information for multiple stakeholders
- Â Research-specific news center
- Â Faculty and scholarship search engine
Tactic 10: Social media improvement guide
Along with the research website, social media is another important channel for communicating the value of research to external audiences. In order to maximize the impact of social media for research communications and to avoid creating more noise, CROs and their staff should develop a clear use strategy for each social media platform.
Research communicators need to make six critical choices to maximize the impact of their social media communications:
- Select the right content— choose research stories that are timely, newsworthy, and have the potential to engage multiple audiences.
- Pick the appropriate medium based on the selected content
- Identify a primary intended audience to receive the message
- Craft the message based on the content, medium, and audience
- Select a platform(s) based on both the chosen medium and audience
- Identify the metrics to track and use to assess value even before sharing via social media
Tactic 11: Compelling content library
In order to develop targeted campaigns, improve research websites, and strategically use social media, CROs and their staff need to have compelling content on hand to share with external audiences.
Louisiana State University (LSU) has created compelling content by developing one-page fact sheets that show how LSU is solving key community-relevant problems through its research. These are distributed to legislators when related bills or issues are being discussed.
Similar to LSU, Clemson University has also developed compelling content with short, creative videos that clearly present faculty research and articulate its importance and impact. (They also replaced in-person, faculty lectures about research to the Board of Trustees.)
Tactic 12: Community-connected events
It is critical that CROs, faculty, and staff engage directly with the general public about university research. Many institutions have attempted to accomplish this by hosting research events for the local community. Yet, in most cases, these events simply cater to those who are already engaged in the given fields and do not appeal to or engage new audiences.
In order to better engage with the local community, Louisiana State University (LSU) adjusted the format and location of its research events. Four years ago, LSU’s Office of Research and Economic Development started sponsoring “Science Cafes” on the last Tuesday of every month. Since these free cafes are advertised to a broad audience within the local community and take place in a familiar and popular local venue, community members are more likely to find them appealing, as compared to traditional campus-based research lectures.
There are three key elements CROs and their staff should consider in order to plan successful community-connected events:
Content
- Create “bridges” between STEM research and other disciplines (e.g., music, art)
- Minimize jargon
Location
- Host events in the community rather than on campus
- Consider where audience spends time
- Use nontraditional spaces (e.g., warehouses, music venues) that may attract new audiences
Style
- Make events interactive and/or visually engaging
- Avoid lecture-based, academic presentations
Tactic 13: Strategic scorecard
Optimizing research communications channels requires significant investment of money and time. Yet, far too often CROs and their staff do not know whether their communications efforts are effective. Few institutions have devoted significant attention to tracking and measuring the return on their investment in research communications.
The University of Minnesota has avoided common failure points and instead invested in evaluating the impact of its Driven to Discover campaign. One of the strengths of the University of Minnesota’s assessment efforts was the use of multiple metrics of success and consideration of external and internal stakeholder perspectives.
By conducting an external phone survey, an external online survey, and an internal online survey, the University of Minnesota was able to obtain a nuanced understanding of the impact of its Driven to Discover campaign and could therefore adjust their approach and messaging based on these results.
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