Impact & Research Communication Skills

Training Organisation: Lucian Consulting

Delivery: In Person

Programme Description:

This workshop is designed to develop the necessary skills for effectively communicating the significance of your research outside the immediate environment of fellow-specialists in your own field. The relevance of this training will be far-reaching in a range of contexts central to any researcher’s career (grant applications, presentations, publications, job applications, public engagement, and all forms of contact with the media). It answers a pressing need in the current climate for researchers to engage with wider audiences and show the public relevance of academic research, and responds to the increasing requirement on the part of funding bodies for the research they support to have a demonstrable impact outside the academy. There are practical skills-based exercises and opportunities for discussion throughout.

Learning Outcomes:

- Discovering how not to disappear up your own specialism!
- Increased clarity and confidence on how to present research to non-specialists
- Developing new ways to explain why it matters
- Developing the larger life of your research beyond its incarnation as a PhD
- Gaining a perspective on your own project that is very good preparation for upgrades and vivas
- An understanding of how public engagement differs from academic presentation
- A flexible range of communication techniques from elevator pitches to writing the headlines
- Learning to focus on outcomes, benefits and the public value of research
- Increased awareness of impact as a funding criterion
- Developing communication skills relevant to future academic careers (for funding proposals, job applications, presentations, publications, knowledge exchange, REF)
- Developing transferable skills for non-academic careers, to boost employability outside the academy