Key takeaways from organising a science communication workshop series
When we think about research, we often imagine a clean laboratory with people in white coats who work with fancy equipment. While some research might actually look like this, research in the field of mental health is sometimes harder to picture and more complicated to explain. There are many ways we can collect information and engage with the topic we are studying, and we are continuously trying to improve the ways in which we conduct our research and report what we have found.
I myself am a postdoctoral researcher (which is what we call researchers after completing their PhD) for the EDIFY project (EDIFY - shaping a fresh approach to eating disorders), one of the seven research programmes that are currently funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) ‘Adolescents Mental Health and Developing Mind’ initiative. This means the UKRI is financially supporting our research project, so that we can look into different ways of improving the lives of young people, in our case specifically young people with eating disorders.
Across the different projects funded by this initiative, we have a vast amount of expertise spanning areas of digital mental health, adverse childhood experiences, and neurodivergence. To get the most out of our combined expertise, the UKRI decided to provide additional funding for smaller projects that would help us build connections and share knowledge across the programmes. As a result, four groups of postdoctoral researchers were granted the opportunity to organise a variety of events to build a sense of community amongst Early Career Researchers (ECRs, including postdoctoral researchers, research assistants, and PhD students) and the young people who work with the project teams as experts by experience (youth advisors).
This new series is one of the outcomes of a project organised by EDIFY ECRs to develop researchers’ and youth advisors’ skills in ‘science communication’ - the ways in which we engage with, discuss, and share our research with other researchers, the media, and relevant audiences.
As part of our events, we organised a two-day London-based science communication workshop, as well as an online showcase to reflect on how best to communicate research experiences and outcomes to different audiences. This was achieved through research-focused media training provided by HawkEye Media in London, guided group discussions, networking activities (Bingo and speed networking), and many opportunities to share knowledge and experiences.
Taking our science communication to the next step, we are now excited to share what we have learned with a wider audience to shed more light on our research practices and the lessons learnt. In the following weeks, this series will provide interesting insights into the ways our researchers and youth advisors experience the research process, including challenges and opportunities we have encountered - all from the perspective of those still finding their feet in the research world. As the main organiser of the science communication events, I wanted to kick off the series by reflecting on three key learnings that I am taking away from planning a project series where I was both the lead organiser and the target audience. Event organisation might not be the first thing one thinks of when picturing the tasks of a researcher, but more often than not it is a skill we have to learn to bring people together for training, data collection, or conferences.
Events should always benefit the people you consider your “target audience”
This first point might be an obvious one, but sometimes the costs of attending an event (not just financially) can outweigh the benefits of what is being offered. For example, to attend an event some people will need to travel, they might need to make up the time they spent at the event, or they might need to plan around other responsibilities. Equally, if attending the event is associated with many additional commitments (additional work), people might experience the event as more of a burden than a benefit. This is the reason why we wanted to organise a variety of activities, including training that did not require any preparation and would be both fun and useful to attend. We also organised our second “showcase” event online, to give people who cannot or do not want to travel an opportunity to participate. Most importantly, we financially supported travel and accommodation costs and made sure to adequately compensate youth advisors for their time.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, however! Although we received primarily positive feedback, some of our attendees would have preferred fewer interactive activities. If you are organising an event, think about your main goals, not just in terms of visible outcomes, but also the overall experience. You will never make everyone happy, but that should be the goal you are striving for!
Communication is key – be creative!
To organise our events, I had to send many emails. I almost felt like apologising every time I sent another reminder. However, it is important to communicate all relevant details to all interested parties. This does not only involve key details about the event (the “W questions” – who, where, when, why), but also visuals on how to find the event location, summary reports, thank you emails, and updates on future events and opportunities. I personally loved using software like Canva to help with this and used it as much as I could to create pretty posters, flyers, and reports. I find that it just helps with getting your message across, especially if you organise a science communication event. Whatever you are trying to achieve, if your audience does not receive the information they need, people will either not attend or miss out on important learnings.
Ask for help, especially from others with more expertise and wider networks
Organising a series of events was a challenge for our ECR team, as we had to balance our usual work responsibilities with time-consuming additional tasks (the emails alone were a full-time job!). We could have never done this without some help from our project leads (the “more senior” academics) and we distributed tasks whenever possible.
Realistically, there will always need to be one person in charge who oversees the events and makes sure that all bases are covered (catering, travel, advertisements, planning content, communications, etc.). However, to grow we first need to learn and be able to make some mistakes, and that requires us to reach out when we struggle or when we could benefit from additional support. At the same time, people often don’t expect you to do everything – our showcase consisted mostly of attendees presenting their own science communication strategies. Recognising everyone’s expertise (including ECRs’ and youth advisors’) means that you can truly learn from each other.
I am very grateful to be part of an academic community that is moving towards more collaborative working and acknowledges that we need to first build the expertise that we expect to see in research outputs. For this reason, I am looking forward to all the inspiring and instructive articles that will follow this introductory piece. This series is meant to celebrate ideas and reflections on research processes while we are building our community and move towards better research practices.