Communications and dissemination strategy for research

Our communications strategies are designed to be insight-led, practical and impact focused.

Whether you’re a research group, medical society or innovative business, it’s likely that you’ll have limited resources available for specialist research communications – so it makes sense to ensure you’re using these to maximum effect.

We bring strategic thinking from 25 years in reserach communications to help uncover what you want to achieve, identify the best routes to reach the audiences you want to target, and the most effective mechanisms to use – whether you’re looking to attract new funding, collaborations or demonstrate impact.

1. Define purpose and impact

We start by understanding what your research aims to achieve and the change you want to see. We’ll identify how communications can help deliver real-world impact in policy, practice or public understanding.

2. Map and understand your audiences

Through stakeholder mapping and insight-gathering, we identify who your audiences are, what matters most to them, and what motivates them to engage.

3. Audit current activity

We benchmark your existing communications against peers and best practice. We’ll analyse your websites, publications, and engagement channels and wider networks to see what’s working and where the gaps lie.

4. Develop strategy and key messages

Using established communications frameworks, we co-create a practical strategy with clear objectives, messages, and routes to reach each audience effectively. Crucially for small teams, we focus on what can realistically be delivered.

5. Plan pathways to impact

We outline the communications activities that will make the biggest difference, from storytelling and policy briefs to events, media and digital campaigns, helping to ensure your future work connects and endures.

6. Delivery and evaluation

Finally, we can help you put the strategy into action and measure results - we can either work in partnership with you to deliver your communications, or, we’ll show you how to set up tools, templates and evaluation frameworks to track engagement and demonstrate impact over time.

7. Check in

Despite the best forward planning, sometimes in research things change and you have to respond to new opportunities. So, after we’ve delivered your strategy document, we won’t disappear. We’ll arrange a check-in call a few weeks or months later to see how you’re getting on - we’ll discuss whether your strategy needs any tweaks to make sure it’s doing what it needs to do.