Writing For Scientific Journals

Good policy listens. Great policy listens to science.  In a complex world, policies that learn from evidence remain credible, resilient and trusted. That’s why it’s so important for EU-funded researchers and innovators to engage more closely with policymakers. My colleagues at the European Research Executive Agency (REA) produced a series of practical guides to help projects communicate, disseminate and exploit their scientific results more effectively - and ensure that their work reaches those who shape policy and support their uptake in the economy.  1️⃣ Starter kit with step-by-step advice on sharing results with policymakers, an overview of key resources and tips to amplify the impact of scientific evidence:  https://lnkd.in/duXKbFap  2️⃣ Guide on writing policy briefs, including drafting steps, dos and don’ts and a handy template with examples:  https://lnkd.in/d46ERqPy  3️⃣ ️ To engage a broader range of stakeholders beyond policymakers - such as academia and industry - a special starter kit for disseminating and exploiting scientific results was created. It offers practical tools, resources and hands-on guidance: https://lnkd.in/d_yiqTPy  The goal is simple: help good science travel further, faster and turn evidence into action. 

Regardless of what you've been told, academic communication and dissemination is (much) more than just publishing. When I started my research career, I thought publishing papers was the key part of being successful in academia. Needles to say, was I wrong! Academic communication is a powerful ecosystem that extends far beyond peer-reviewed journals. Here are 5 critical communication channels every academic should master: 1. Conference Presentations • Storytelling matters more than dense data slides • Practice your narrative arc • Engage, don't just inform 2. Digital Platforms • Twitter/X for rapid knowledge sharing • LinkedIn for professional networking • Personal blogs for deeper insights • YouTube for visual explanations 3. Collaborative Workshops • Cross-disciplinary dialogue • Knowledge co-creation • Breaking academic silos 4. Public Engagement • Science communication podcasts • Media interviews • Community lectures • Making complex ideas accessible 5. Mentorship & Dialogue • Guiding next-generation researchers • Informal knowledge transfer • Building intellectual communities Pro Tip: Your research impact isn't measured just by publication count, but by how widely and effectively you communicate your insights. Have you expanded your academic communication beyond traditional publishing? What strategies have worked best for you? #PhD #Research #Science #Scientist #Academia #Professor #Nature #Publishing

🔍 NGOs in Horizon Europe: Your Role in Dissemination, Communication & Exploitation (DCE) Are you an NGO looking to partner in Horizon Europe projects? Your impact goes far beyond participation — you can be a key driver of visibility, uptake, and sustainability of research results. Here’s a step-by-step DCE roadmap tailored for NGOs: ✅ Dissemination Identify key results with societal relevance. Map stakeholders: citizens, policymakers, media, other NGOs. Share through open-access platforms, community events, and policy briefs. Register results on platforms 📣 Communication Raise awareness using storytelling and public engagement. Use social media, newsletters, and science outreach events. Apply citizen engagement principles to boost relevance. 🚀 Exploitation Prioritize results with real-world impact. Explore licensing, spin-offs, policy integration, and educational use. Manage IP early with support from experts 📚 Knowledge Management & Capacity Building Organize and share results using FAIR principles. Train staff, build partnerships, and strengthen your organization’s innovation capacity. 🌍 NGOs bring unique value to Horizon projects — community trust, policy influence, and grassroots reach. Let’s make research matter!

Reviewers called it a significant contribution. Three years later: 12 citations. I knew this: Publishing your research is one of the highest-leverage moves you can make in academia and the digital age is a brutal but brilliant place to own it. It might be your raw data, methodology, insights, or gruelling negative results. You might be running grant-funded projects or leading tight teams but if you're not clearly documenting and sharing your process, your impact will plateau. That's a fact. The single greatest skill that you can develop as a researcher is sharing your work in the absence of anything forcing you to share it. Here's what I learned after publishing 300+ papers: Most of the public doesn't question an academic who stays quiet. Because you're just heads-down on the research. Busy. So, if you can be invisible for no reason (other than feeling humble maybe), you might as well be visible for no reason because that one at least opens doors for you. Most academic work has 0 impact because nobody knows it exists. Think of your research as a map to buried treasure. You've spent years charting your territory. X marks the spot. Now ask yourself: Where is that map right now? Most academics draw the map, file it, and hope someone finds the filing cabinet. That's not a dissemination strategy. I had funding partners reach out to me. Not from a pitch deck. Not from cold outreach. From one well-placed paper and a few clear posts on LinkedIn. I've seen early-career researchers land tenure-track positions because they wrote well. Not better data. Better visibility. The search committee could find their work. Here's where academic careers stop progressing: Most researchers stop at publications. Great, you drew the map. You filed it with the archivist. They nodded approvingly. Now you're one map among millions published this year. The researchers who get cited for decades? They hand out copies. 3 layers: documented → distributed → discussed That's the journey from obscurity to influence. I now treat every paper as a distribution system: Layer 1: Documented The paper exists. Peer-reviewed, rigorous, archived. But this is the floor, not the ceiling. Most researchers stop here and wonder why nobody reads their work. Layer 2: Distributed Translate your findings for faster consumption. Threads. Posts. Talks. One paper becomes ten entry points. People find your map without visiting the archive. Layer 3: Discussed Talk about adjacent work. Build relationships. Respond to others. Your ideas spread through connection. Research that gets discussed gets remembered. One test I apply to everything I write: → Could someone outside my subfield understand why this matters? If not, rewrite the first paragraph. 📌 Save this for the day your paper gets accepted. That's when the real work starts. Join 13,000+ researchers putting their research on the map every week: https://lnkd.in/e4HfhmrH

Our published work: Academic Framework for Disseminating Best Practices📚🏥 our new research (DOI: 10.1002/jhm.70023) presented a validated academic framework for effectively disseminating clinical best practices through the Society of Hospital Medicine's Rapid Clinical Updates program. The evidence-based framework features: - Systematic pairing of subspecialist researchers with practicing hospitalists - Literature-informed content development process - Active learning methodologies that promote audience engagement - Rigorous evaluation metrics measuring quality and practice implementation Academic impact: Four years of data demonstrate this framework consistently achieves high-quality educational outcomes while driving measurable changes in clinical practice patterns. This represents a significant contribution to medical education research, offering a replicable model for academic institutions and professional societies seeking to bridge the research-to-practice gap. The framework addresses a critical challenge in evidence-based medicine: how to systematically translate emerging research into widespread clinical adoption. How is your institution approaching evidence-based practice dissemination? #AcademicMedicine #BestPractices #KnowledgeTranslation #MedicalEducationResearch #EvidenceBasedPractice #HospitalMedicine Lily Somwaru Jagriti Chadha Joseph Sweigart Nick Marzano, CAE

Research findings are not the finish line! When research projects reach a point where the findings are clear, the analysis is complete, and the outputs are taking shape, it can seem like the work is done. But in practice, there is more that can be done. Having findings does not automatically lead to impact. It creates the potential for impact. What happens next depends on whether those findings are actively positioned, adapted, and extended into places where they can be used. One of the most valuable shifts at this stage is to move away from thinking only about dissemination, and towards thinking about leveraging value. Ask the questions: - Where else could this research have value? - Who else might benefit from or act on these findings? - Are there adjacent user groups who were not the original focus but could use this information in a different way? Often, the initial impact pathway reflects how the project was framed at the beginning. But once findings exist, new opportunities can emerge. A piece of work intended for one group may have relevance for another. Insights developed in one context may translate into a different setting. Findings may contribute to problems that were not visible at the outset. This is where impact can be extended, not by doing more of the same, but by thinking more broadly and more strategically about use. It may involve: - identifying new or secondary user groups - reframing findings for different contexts - adapting outputs to suit different needs - or positioning the research within new decision-making or practice environments. Importantly, this does not mean overextending or forcing relevance where it does not exist. It means being attentive to where genuine value lies, and ensuring the work has the opportunity to reach those places. For researchers, this stage can feel less defined than earlier phases of the project. There is often less structure, and fewer clear prompts. For those supporting research impact, this is where strategic guidance can make a significant difference, helping to identify where momentum exists and where it could be strengthened. Remember - findings are not the finish line, they are a point of transition. And in many cases, this is where impact can be most effectively accelerated, by making sure the research does not just exist, but reaches the places where it can contribute to real change. Have you ever found new or unexpected audiences for your research after the findings were complete? #majykri #researchimpact #impactacceleration #pathwaystoimpact

Today I wanted to write a short post about dissemination for a broader (general interest, or policy-oriented audience) for research projects. This will be informed by my experience at IFPRI, where such dissemination is a major part of our mission -- probably more so than for the majority of university-based researchers -- but also aiming to provide suggestions for what those university-based researchers could do, if you're interested. So, your paper is ready! Either a working paper, or an R&R, or it's published. You may have had, or still have, academic seminars or presentations. What else? First: you can aim to present the findings (in an open or closed forum) to policymakers, partners, or other stakeholders. This typically occurs very naturally for field evaluations, where it is usually required (but still, you can do it at very different scales: a powerpoint presentation in the funder's office, vis-a-vis a half-day seminar with open invitations. The latter is probably much more rewarding, but budget and time are required.) For secondary analysis where you wrote a paper using xyz public data on xyz topic, this may or may not be feasible depending on the connections you have and your ability to assemble an audience; but it's worth consideration, at least. Second: you can aim to write up a somewhat more general interest summary of the results. The best-known venue for this for development economists is probably Voxdev, but there are many others; of course we at IFPRI have our own blog and produce policy briefs, other research or non-governmental institutions may have their own blogs (or newsletters, or briefs), there are other competitive venues (e.g., the Conversation). These generally still attract an audience of research-adjacent people, but broader than full-time researchers (NGO staff, policymakers, funders, etc.) Aiming for something like an op-ed in a newspaper would be unusual (and is typically very competitive), but is certainly possible. If you do any of the above (more general talks, briefs, blog posts, etc.), also make sure to link to them on your website next to the academic paper. (Reminder to myself - I need to update my own links.) Someone browsing your website who is interested in a paper but doesn't want to scan the full pdf might then happily click over to read a Voxdev post, or look through a slide deck. And finally - since I'm posting on Linkedin - I shouldn't omit the importance of posting on social media. Keep updates about your paper (usually) relatively short and non-technical, and with a heavy emphasis on graphical elements (much easier to absorb in short bursts). Link to the full output as well as to any other outputs you have. And there's no harm in repetition; you can't post about your paper every week, but certainly you could post about a new working paper, then again when published, or if you present publicly, etc.; you may catch new audiences each time. Good luck disseminating your results!

The mounting pressure on university professors to increase research productivity often overlooks a critical issue: the lack of adequate time, resources, and funding to conduct meaningful, high-impact research that benefits society. 😌 This misalignment risks prioritizing quantity over quality, undermining the potential for transformative discoveries. To address this, university research and commercialization offices must provide robust, targeted support to empower faculty and amplify the societal value of their work. At a minimum, universities should offer the following forms of assistance: 1. Professional Manuscript Enhancement: 🎷 Access to expert editing services to refine the clarity, coherence, and academic rigor of research papers, ensuring they meet the highest standards for publication and effectively communicate findings to diverse audiences. 2. Strategic Publication Guidance:🎯 Tailored support in selecting reputable journals and conferences that align with the research’s scope, target audience, and impact potential, leveraging data on journal metrics, audience reach, and field relevance. 3. Cost-Effective Publishing Solutions: 🪕 Assistance in identifying high-quality, low-cost, or open-access publication venues to minimize financial barriers, such as article processing charges (APCs), ensuring equitable access to dissemination for all researchers. 4. Amplified Research Dissemination: 📯 Dedicated resources to promote research findings through diverse channels, including social media, press releases, policy briefs, and public engagement events, to maximize visibility and societal impact. 5. Commercialization and Innovation Support: ✅ Collaborative expertise to translate research into tangible outcomes, such as patents, products, or startups, through market analysis, prototyping resources, and connections to funding or industry partners.

If you’ve ever felt like shouting “JUST READ MY PAPER!”...  This is for you. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: If you don’t communicate your research clearly, consistently, and strategically, most people will never hear about it. Not funders. Not policymakers. Not journalists. Not even your peers. Yes, those who study the same things and never invite you as a coauthor. But when scientists hear “go viral” or “personal brand,” they picture loud, self-promotional nonsense that feels icky. That’s not what this is. This is about being visible for the right reasons and making your work easier to fund, share, and scale. Here are 10 ways to do just that (without sounding like a sales pitch): 1. Tell the story behind the data: what inspired the question? 2. Show the real-world impact: why does it matter, and to whom? 3. Use simple metaphors to explain complex findings. 4. Talk about the process: the failures, surprises, pivots. 5. Share quotes from collaborators or community members. 6. Repurpose talks or papers into short LinkedIn posts. 7. Make one powerful visual that captures your key point. 8. Answer the question: “So what?” in plain language. 9. Engage with others in your space, don’t just broadcast. 10. Build a narrative thread that connects your work to your purpose. This isn’t fluff. It’s a strategy. And it works not just for algorithms, but for funders, reporters, and decision-makers who need clarity more than data. – Want your research to spark action, not just citations? ✅ Follow for more science & purpose reflections 📬 Subscribe to Outreach Lab (link under my name) ☕ Book a free clarity call; I'd love to hear your story. Bridge your Science with the World. It’s Ready to Listen.