Spreading the word: practical guidelines for research dissemination strategies

Recommendations include:

• Plan and integrate a dissemination strategy into the life cycle of the research project. Make reference to, or cross check, individual dissemination plans against a series of key planning questions when submitting research proposals
• Use a ‘cascade’ model of research outputs of increasing detail, complexity and technical specialisation. This model needs to be linked to a clear understanding of target audiences, and appropriate dissemination pathways to reach those groups. Production of brief, concise summaries of the key research findings which communicate the range and importance of the conclusions should be a high priority. Research outputs need to be accessible - i.e., attractive to pick up and simple to navigate around. Outputs do not need to include everything that has been found by the research.
• Identify, assess the information needs, and write research outputs for different target audiences (i.e. policy, practitioner, researcher, public, etc).
• Use a variety of dissemination media when communicating research. Consider who the research is intended for and link outputs to target audience information needs
• Adopt an ‘equality of dissemination pathway’ approach to the production of papers from research. For every academic refereed paper submitted to a journal, a paper written for a popular outlet should be submitted
• Consider dissemination opportunities during the life of the project, rather than at the project end (this assumes that quality assurance procedures are designed into the research from the beginning). Interim reports could highlight potential dissemination outputs.

A shorter, synthesis version of this report is also available at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/wedc/publications/snstw/snstw.pdf