It's such a waste when research doesn't reach an audience. Yale University has developed some good resources to help people disseminate their findings. This AIDS research program, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA), has developed guidelines that are now being tailored to other research groups. One of those is CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement, offering a guide for disseminating community-based research. The document Beyond Scientific Publication: Strategies for Disseminating Research Findings presents recommendations that should be useful to lots of other researchers who haven't previously been involved in pubic relations, marketing, or promotion of their findings (22-page pdf).
It's not just about PR, it's an ethical obligation. The document opens by saying "Often a neglected afterthought in busy research schedules, the dissemination of key findings upon project completion is a crucial step in community-based research. In fact, we believe that researchers have an ethical obligation to ensure that research findings are disseminated to research participants, as well as other individuals and institutions in the communities in which we work. In an effort to increase ease and efficiency, this document provides key strategies for dissemination, including practical advice and specific templates you can adapt for your use. Through this strategic dissemination approach, CARE intends to distribute salient findings to affected communities, participant agencies, health departments, researchers, policy makers, and health advocacy groups." Topics include media coverage, press releases, research summaries & briefs, posters, newsletters, community publications, web sites, list-serves, events, and conferences.
Writing tips. I've done *lots* of writing that translated research into plain English. The Yale document offers some good tips to researchers, which is good, although I'm convinced many will need more guidance and hands-on help than this -- often they need a seasoned presenter to help them package up their findings. Recommendations include producing content that is:
- "Responsive: Consider your target audiences when deciding on document type.
- Concise: Make it short and to the point; be sure that information is easy to find.
- Interesting: Sort through all findings, and present just those that are new and/or compelling.
- Highlight key points: Use bulleted lists, with one finding or conclusion per bullet.
- Logical: Make sure the points progress in a logical order.
- Useful: Write clear conclusions and recommendations; if readers know what to do with the information, they will be more likely to apply it."
The document also helps authors categorize and summarize their findings so journalists, physicians, and other audiences know how it applies. All this would be even more valuable with better publishing tools (explicit metadata, etc.), but it's a good start. Here's an example of the provided templates:
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