​Promoting your research

Promoting your work improves visibility and ultimately may lead to greater academic and non-academic impact. Use the ideas below to ensure that your research is as widely accessible as it can be.

Go Open Access

You may have already submitted your work to LUPIN in line with the University's Open Access Policy. There is significant evidence to suggest that publishing your work Open Access leads to wider readership, increased downloads and ultimately more citations.  

Publish your data alongside your research

Early research indicates that papers published alongside their datasets are more highly cited than those that are not. Publishing your data gives readers two routes in to your research and also improves the reproducibility of your research. Deposit your data in Loughborough's Research Repository.

Preprints can be used to share your research quickly

Preprints are used to speed up dissemination, increase visibility and recognition of your work and to gain early feedback. They can be cited and many pre-print servers assign a unique persistent identifier such as a DOI or Handle. Be aware that some journals may not accept manuscripts that have previously been published as preprints. Check Sherpa Romeo for publisher’s policies. For more information on preprints and what to consider before posting a preprint, see the following practical guide to preprints.

Write a lay summary of your research

It is good practice to write a lay summary outlining what your research is about and why it's important.  You can then share these summaries on social media and chart the increased attention your research is getting. Many reserachers find it a useful exercise to distill the key findings and significance of their research into a form that a lay person can understand. You can also gain hints and tips from the Media Training Resources toolkit, including advice on writing for a wider audience.

Create a social media presence

Jobs.ac.uk have produced a Digital identity health check for academics showing you how you might check how you are perceived online. Use Twitter, blogs, profile tools and reference managers (such as Mendeley) to promote yourself and your research.  See the Marketing & Advancement social media pages to learn more.

Create and maintain your academic profiles

Google Scholar Profile

Setting up a profile only takes a few minutes and allows others to find all your publications in one place.  You can also sign up for alerts to receive notifications when a paper of yours has been cited.

  1. You'll need a Google account before you can begin - use your existing account or create one.
  2. Go to Google Scholar and click on 'My profile'
  3. Follow the instructions, adding your affiliation information and a non-university email address (so you can still access your profile if you leave Loughborough). Remember to validate the address - you'll receive an email asking you to do this. 
  4. Add keywords relating to your research and add a link to your University home page (if you have one)
  5. Add a photo if you want to personalise your profile. 
  6. Click on 'Next step' to create your basic profile. 
  7. Add your publications - Google will probably suggest the correct ones and ask you to confirm that they are yours. If you have a common name it is recommended that you select manual updates rather than automatic so you can check whether outputs are yours before adding them to your profile. 
  8. To find missing publications, you can search using article titles or DOIs. You can also add missing publications manually if required. 
  9. Make your profile public - this means that others will be able to find it and discover your body of work. 

Once you've set up your profile, Google Scholar will update it with publications that it thinks are yours.  If you have a common name and/or you wish to double-check outputs before they are added to your profile (Google indexes lots of content such as newsletters, book reviews etc, not just scholarly articles), click on the + symbol at the top of your publication list, and "Configure article updates". Select the "Don't automatically update my profile. Send me email to review and confirm updates" option.  

For more on Google Scholar Profiles, see this useful blog post by Anne-Wil Harzing, "Google Scholar Citation Profiles, the good, the bad, and the better

It is important to use a non-university email address, as Google will lock you out of your Google Scholar account when your email address is closed as you leave Loughborough, further advice is available at: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html#setup

Academic Social Networking sites (ResearchGate & Academia.edu)

Academic Social Networking Sites such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate are not a substitute for putting your outputs on the Research Repository (RR) which is a university requirement. However, they are a great way of increasing your visibility. Do not upload papers directly to these sites.  Instead, direct people to the RR which contains both a link to the publisher version of your output and any legal Open Access copy. You can insert a link to the RR page on Academia.edu. For more information on how to do this see Creating legal links to publications. On ResearchGate it is not possible to add links, however it may be possible to add a document containing a link to the RR page depending on your interpretation of the terms of use, specifically: “users shall not post content whose primary purpose is to drive Users to links outside of ResearchGate".  If you do not add such a document, you can email copies directly to individuals who request them.  Check the HowCanIShareIt.com website to identify where you can share the publisher PDF; if uncertain, send the author accepted manuscript.

ORCID

ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) is a single identifier designed to ensure appropriate academic credit gets assigned to individual researchers. ORCID may be mandatory for some funders and publishers.  Please see the University ORCID page for more information.

Write for 'The Conversation'

Loughborough is now a member of The Conversation, a news, analysis and commentary website of academic-led content. It offers you an additional platform through which you can raise the profile of your research. There is more information about The Conversation within the Media Training Resources toolkit, including how to pitch ideas. Contact Public Relations to find out more about how you can contribute.

Be a subject expert for the media

If you're interested in working with the media, please check the Media Training Resources toolkit for hints and tips, and contact Public Relations