Section 8: How to engage and communicate for impact

How to engage and communicate for impact

Engaging and communicating with the people you want to have an impact with – who we’ll refer to here as your ‘audience’ – was seen as crucial by the researchers we interviewed for this project.

The people we spoke to cited varied examples – from other researchers who could further build on their work to direct beneficiaries like patients, or even customers of a product they’d developed. The common thread was that regular and thorough engagement and communication with those audiences was necessary in order to have an impact.

We’ve collected a variety of insights below from our interviews below, including ideas on how to:

Communicate and engage with audiences throughout the research process – including before the research has even started
Tailor communications to the audience and interpret the results for them
Navigate communications with policymakers, the media and the general public

In addition, there are further findings from our researcher survey, showing which channels researchers choose to communicate their research and why.

Research insights

We conducted a survey with over 9,000 researchers to understand how societal impact is viewed by academics across different countries, disciplines and career stages. This is what we found…Researchers used a variety of communications channels to maximise their societal impact. This is why they chose them…

Interview insights from academics based in the Netherlands

We carried out a series of interviews with researchers from a variety of disciplines who have made a societal impact with their research.Communicate and engage with audiences throughout the research process – including before the research has even started.

It’s easy for researchers to look at a specific community and think that something is a problem for them. But the community doesn't see that as a problem – they have other more pressing issues to deal with. For example, it's a luxury to be worried about your diet if you can’t even afford three meals a day. That's why we want to include the community in our research because we can then create, study and implement results in a way that’s meaningful to them – and that’s going to have much more impact.

Professor Mai Chin A Paw, university research chair professor at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam

Read the interview.

From the very beginning, when we think of a research question, we get input from people in practice and from people that the research may impact to understand what the research question should be. Then, when we execute the research, we involve the target groups for the research. Finally, we contribute to implementing the results of our research in collaboration with societal partners.

Jutka Halberstadt, assistant professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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The first thing we did was to look at how to deliver research agenda setting that was based on what researchers want, on what medical people want, and what patients want. To do that we took input from all those different groups using mixed methods, mapping, dialogue and feedback rounds and then combined it into one research agenda. And we did that together with the Dutch Medical Research Council.

Pim de Boer, senior strategic policy advisor EU at
Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and Amsterdam University Medical Center, and former pathobiologist

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You could include the people you want to communicate with on an advisory board, right from the start of the project, for example. Or even involve them in the research itself. Co-creation around research questions allows [your audience] to have their own interests researched, which not only means they’re more bought in – and perhaps more likely to act on the results – but it can also lead you to questions you might not otherwise have thought to include.

Professor Melanie Ehren, research chair at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and director of LEARN! Research Institute

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Tailor communications to the audience and interpret the results in the right language

We often involve the children in communicating research to their peers. They’re brilliant at creating blogs or videos and other really cool materials that attract their peers. I think this approach – both including them in the research, but also presenting the results – is so beneficial for the children. You definitely see them growing and developing throughout the process and the teachers see it too.

Professor Mai Chin A Paw, university research chair professor at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam

Read the interview.

I’ve found face-to-face interactions are often the most effective. With police officers, for example, I might do a very short presentation. But the majority of the time I spend with them would be focused on getting them to start discussing interesting dilemmas they’re facing which are related to the research. Coming up with cases that I’ve seen, for example, which will trigger some discussion with them.

Professor Hans Nelen, key domain chair in criminal law and criminology at the Faculty of Law, Maastricht University

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We communicate with a number of different groups in mind. For the children [who took part], we make a one-page summary in really easy-to-understand language. And then, for a broader audience of parents and children, we seek media opportunities. For healthcare professionals, we’ve developed tip sheets, a web tool, and workshops to help them understand how to use our model. For policymakers, we make implementation tools that they can use locally, as well as easy evaluation tools. We even made a short movie they can watch to help them quickly understand our messages.

Jutka Halberstadt, assistant professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Read the interview.

Navigate communications with policymakers, the media and the general public

I think Twitter is a great tool to communicate with journalists. The approach I would recommend if you’re seeking more exposure for your research is to look for discussions and articles being posted about subjects relevant to your research. And if you think you have something to add to the conversation or debate, you can join it. And then you tag in your articles. Scholarly or non-scholarly. And that is a way for people following the discussion, including journalists, to see that.

Dr. Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law, international criminal justice and human rights at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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It was an interesting and strange experience – to have politicians commenting on your work but without you being able to respond. It was a bit of a frantic process and very different from the normal pace of academic research where we’re very used to taking our time and writing stuff down in detail. Here we had to act quickly. We published multiple times, we posted on blogs for economists and also legal scholars in order to get the word out.

Floris Peters, postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University and winner of the 2018 FASOS Valorization Prize

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As a journalist, I was taught that you have to write as though you’re explaining something to your old aunt. That's the level that's needed for a broad audience to understand it. And it’s a very different approach from writing a scientific paper, but I believe that with a bit of practice anyone can do it. It’s about changing your mindset and imagining the person you’re explaining it to.

Jutka Halberstadt, assistant professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Read the interview.

A lot of it is network building – both with policymakers and with the media, with journalists. During the last 10 years or so, I think it's also more and more important to publish on social media – and I’ve seen many researchers using that as a great way to build their networks too.

Professor Frank Cörvers, scientific director at the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics

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We need to find ways to make people realise that even if research isn’t immediately applicable, it's building on our knowledge and on our culture and that eventually it could enrich that culture. It’s about telling the story of our research in a way that creates a spark and brings understanding to society.

Mark Post, professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University and
Chief Scientific Officer at Mosa Meat

Read the interview.