1. Team is all. Use internal communications effectively to build morale and keep spirits up, not to gossip. Don’t let some dominate your discourse at the expense of others.

2. Just do it! There’s nothing worse than a huge, wordy communications strategy. Keep it slim, with clear activities and outputs, and do them! Don’t wait for huge doses of consensus, debate and argument – communications in a programme has to be dynamic and adaptive, and to get there requires trial and error. So don’t hesitate… communicate!

3. Keep it visual. But when you do it, make it look eye-catching. Don’t produce products that are dull and then distribute them. A sign of a good product is if your local DFID country programme samples it for a ministerial visit without informing you (or paying the producers!). Make your brand eye-catching.

4. Look around. Keep peeking at what others are doing around you and then do the same – but in your own way. For example, put together a funky CD or DVD rather than give people more and more printed papers to carry around. And far better a smart product to hand out at meetings than business cards.

5. Don’t confuse publishing with communication. There’s nothing worse than bogging down creativity with the hard graft of producing documents. So make sure you have a separate publications process (peer review, editing, etc.), that enables your ‘creatives’ to focus on their strengths while others get research delivered to schedule.

6. Be bold – and simple. Remember your audience is not always able to comprehend your purpose – so keep your headline messages bold and simple and have evidence ready and waiting to back them up. That’s the art of influencing and informing. There’s nothing worse than consultants with tin ears evaluating a programme, so make sure that you’ve got upfront messages in simple language that even they can absorb!

7. You’re supposed to build capacity. So go out there and build brilliant communications people in your partner countries and institutions – don’t produce everything at home. And don’t necessarily recruit the most advanced; take on those at earlier stages who will stay, learn, and remain loyal!

8. Maintain internal learning. Your communications efforts should both bring in knowledge from outside the programme and help synthesise this knowledge, as well as produce new knowledge internally and then disseminate it. This includes better inward communications from DFID staff, other research programmes, and related initiatives. R4D is great

9. If in doubt, shout! You may find that your donor is sending conflicting signals about what it wants the programme to do and communicate – including how, where, and when. If this is the case, shout at them… in the nicest possible way, of course, and keep on going…

10. Keep it regular. From a director as guilty as any of occasional communications constipation, make sure that people communicate regularly – both internally and externally, and that your outputs come in a nice stream, not a large dollop.

The conflict between the old and new media was a reoccurring theme at the recent World Conference of Science Journalists in London. This was nowhere more apparent than in the DFID-sponsored session looking at ‘The Future of Science News’.

The tidal wave of technological change that has heralded the rise of new media is now spreading out beyond its original audience of western youth and an area where science development communicators want to get, namely the global south. The biggest growth in internet usage in the past year has been in Africa, some of it driven by huge increases in mobile phone usage.

Where then does the science journalist fit into this changing world? Indeed is there a space for science journalists at all?

John Rennie, former managing editor of Scientific American, sees a great future for science news, especially in the US where the new Obama administration seems to be embracing scientific approaches in ways that the former government singularly failed to do. The appetite for good science news is there, but the new media channels, populated by enthusiastic citizens and experts communicating their own ideas without the need for traditional intermediaries make it hard for specialist writers to make a living. Might we be facing a world where we have great science news, but science journalists have disappeared?

If the established media channels and formerly big-hitting science magazines are to survive, John believes they need to return to concentrating on their ‘cardinal virtues’, namely establishing authority, credibility, and expertise; undertaking investigative work, criticising and reflecting multiple voices in any debate. That is not to say that they should stand still. These science news magazines are doing what they can to adapt to the new media in the same way that all modern media outlets are. They also need to innovate, adapting their editorial processes to use the power of social media to, for example, refine their offerings on the web by producing online versions of stories first and developing them in interactive spaces before taking them to print later.

If it’s hard for traditional science journalists in this new media world, then how much harder is it for those interested in science in development?

David Dickson put it starkly when he said that there was ‘no money in it’; the traditional science news media aren’t that interested in development-focused research. His solution was to approach the donor agencies for funding to create a web-based media outlet to report on research that was emerging from the research institutes and bodies those donors were supporting. Eight years later SciDev.net has a quarter of a million visitors per month and it is widely regarded as one of the best science information sites around. SciDev pays its contributors, and although it has embraced Web 2.0 tools – blogs, RSS feeds and the like – it prides itself on doing the basics well: categorising its content in traditional ways and concentrating on producing pithy, quality copy and editorials. Is this model the answer for journalists who want to keep in the business and still pay the bills…? Well, the new funding model is not without its problems. Donors have their own agendas. They increasingly want to have certain sorts of attribution ascribed to stories, and to have their branding featured prominently on copy or websites. Donors may want stories to illustrate the impact of their funding first and foremost and also want to show that the communication media itself is having impact – but that is something that it’s often extremely difficult to do.

The idea behind the partnership was to link our experiences in health research and media capacity-building to raise debate about TB in the Zambian media. In the process, we wanted to highlight research as a valuable source for journalists, and make that research more accessible through building trust and practical skills for journalists and researchers to work together.

The Reporting Research Workshop: Raising Media Debate Around TB was co-facilitated by TARGETS, Panos Relay, and ZAMBART, with lead researchers and media experts designing and delivering joint sessions to bridge the gap and facilitate exchange between the 20 journalists and 8 researchers who participated.

Here’s a film that shows some of the issues we tackled over the two days:

What follows is not exactly ‘lessons learned’, but a list of (by no means easy) questions that came up as we progressed with this incredibly fruitful collaboration between four organisations working in different fields and contexts.

1. How can the mutual value of working together be converted into practical skills and working relationships?

Often one critical and very practical barrier to communication is specialist language, and what is perceived by journalists to be scientific jargon. We put everyone on the spot to address this issue, asking journalists to define a list of TB-related words and researchers to refine these definitions in ‘lay’ terms. It wasn’t as easy as either group expected.  Where a journalist wants to know the ‘straightforward’ meaning of an acronym for a TB treatment such as DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Shortcourse), for example, researchers want to ensure that the nuances of what the acronym really means are included: DOTS represents an entire five-point strategy for TB treatment in Zambia, not just the medication. The session provided an opportunity for challenging definitions and clarifying information, forcing both journalists and researchers to think again, and then again.

2. Where does the responsibility of researchers end and that of journalists begin?

How far should researchers have to take their research to make it accessible to other audiences? How deeply should the journalists be engaging with the research in order to take it to broader audiences? During the workshop, ZAMBART researchers presented their methods and findings to the journalists in PowerPoint presentations. The journalists were keen to get the facts straight and ask questions afterwards. There was a lot of ground to cover so many of the researchers’ presentations overran. It was remarked that in fact, what the journalists needed to see first and foremost were the researchers’ ‘Conclusion’ slides, where they can get an immediate idea of the ‘so what?’ factor and follow up with their own questions and research. Modifying the usual way of both communicating academic research and going about journalistic research would seem invaluable if both sides are to meet in the middle as partners, rather than expecting the other to come to them.

3. Don’t forget the media! How can we ensure the media is viewed as a stakeholder in research?

One very important outcome of the workshop was the recognition that journalists can help dispel myths and educate communities about TB transmission to combat the stigmatisation of people with TB and its link with HIV – but rarely are they included as a key partner. The workshop involved some reflexive exercises from a TB anti-stigma toolkit developed using ZAMBART research for use in communities. Its success in making the journalists think about stigma from their own experience, and highlighting the role of the media in perpetuating or helping to reduce stigma, showed that journalists as a potentially influential ‘community’ of key information users had thus far been neglected.

4.  The Long View: Institutionalising research communication

As always, there was so much to cover in our workshop but so little time… As part of the collaboration, TARGETS and ZAMBART have funded 10 Panos Media fellowships to enable a group of journalists to follow up some of the story ideas that they developed as part of the practical skills training in the workshop, led by an Editorial team from Panos Southern Africa. However, further questions about the sustainability of research and media capacity to engage with one another arose from some of the discussions about journalism as a professional career, specialising in health, and embedding communication into the research process. How might it be possible to introduce reporting research into existing journalism training? And how can we build institutional support for researchers and journalists to work together more efficiently in developing countries?  Panos London’s Relay Programme and TARGETS RPC are both working to address these issues.

For further information about TARGETS RPC visit our website, or contact Alexandra.Hyde@lshtm.ac.uk.
For further information about the Panos Relay Programme go to the Panos London website, or contact Annie.Hoban@panos.org.uk.

Friendship or Friction? DFID Lunchtime Session at the World Conference of Science Journalists, June 2009

Background

Ready access to reliable and up-to-date research can help doctors make informed decisions about best practice, and improve patient care and outcomes. Healthcare professionals in training in Sub-Saharan Africa could also benefit from better electronic access to reliable, up-to-date medical knowledge and literature. A major constraint, however, is the high commercial on-line subscription costs for many journals.

The World Health Organization enables free access to full text articles in low-income countries via the HINARI programme (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative), which provides free or very low-cost online access to 3,300 major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, non-profit institutions in developing countries. There are presently 2,000 institutions in 106 countries registered for HINARI. During 2005, users at these institutions downloaded more than 3,500,000 articles. There are 113 countries eligible for HINARI. In some cases journals charge a reduced price to developing countries, and there are also open-access journals.

The DFID-funded Effective Health Care Research Consortium has a remit to produce Cochrane Reviews in malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and tropical diseases; the other core activity of the Consortium is promoting use of this evidence in health policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries. Ready access to the Cochrane Library and other subscription journals is a prerequisite for health practitioners and policymakers making evidence-informed decisions. We wanted to find out levels of awareness and use of online medical information among future medical leaders in African countries.

To do this we conducted a survey in October 2006 to describe internet access patterns and awareness of initiatives that enable free access among postgraduate doctors working in national medical institutions in four countries in Africa, and used semi-structured interviews to explore what factors influence use.

Main findings

• We found high and regular use of the internet among postgraduate doctors in four selected national medical institutions in Africa, and internet cafés are the most important internet access point for two of the four institutions studied.
• Among these doctors, awareness of free access initiatives is variable; it is highest for PubMed and lowest for BioMedCentral.
• HINARI helps access in some research-led institutions, but there are problems with organising distribution of passwords in others, and some users report difficulties making HINARI work.

In discussions with policymakers, we drew out the following policy implications relevant to three different sorts of policy specialist or manager:

Senior staff in medical training institutions

• HINARI is important and ensures free access to subscription journals in low-income countries.
• HINARI is critically dependent on the political and managerial commitment of deans and senior managers in postgraduate institutions. They need to ensure access is organised, advertised, and managed.
• Small, carefully managed investments in connectivity will increase access to a large amount of up-to-date medical literature.
• There is a demand from postgraduate doctors for specific training in accessing up-to-date online articles and formal orientation to available online resources. Deans and senior managers need to ensure effective training for post-graduate and undergraduate students is provided.
• Senior managers need to review the role of librarians in this new environment, as medical staff and students shift to online resources as their main source of up-to-date information. Job descriptions need revising, staff may need to be retrained and re-skilled, and the role of information technology within institutions adjusted.

National policymakers

• Increasing evidence-informed decision-making in the health sector requires access to up-to-date medical knowledge. Ministries of education and health could seek tax discounts on computer equipment for medical institutions and health professionals to enable access to online medical knowledge.
• Evidence-informed practice requires clinicians trained in understanding and using current best evidence. Ministries of health could seek to revise national curricula to both include critical appraisal of current research and training in information resource use, and make accessing up-to-date online articles a strict requirement.
• Institutional research capacity may be strengthened by securing better links to the international research community through effective access to online journals.
• Internet cafés may be useful commercially run centres where medical staff can access essential health information.

International stakeholders

• Many doctors in national medical institutions in Africa remain unaware of HINARI and are not regular users; this raises concern over the visibility and promotion of the programme.
• Most doctors are aware of PubMed (Medline) but report problems accessing free full-text articles and this may be because they are not logged into HINARI; WHO may consider advertising the ‘search through PubMed’ function more widely, particularly on the PubMed website.
• Commonly reported technical problems accessing materials for free suggests HINARI may wish to review the ease of use of its interface. HINARI welcome feedback and are already making steps to improve access.

Background

Evidence for Action is an RPC (DFID-funded research programme consortium) with partners in India, Malawi, Uganda, UK and Zambia. Most of the partners in the consortium are primarily research organisations, and whilst all partners were in regular communication with key stakeholders, developing a communications strategy was a new challenge for many of the partners. During the inception period of the RPC the lead partner the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and partner the AIDS Alliance worked together to develop a communications strategy for the consortium. This first strategy focused on our principles for communication, but lacked concrete objectives and ‘how to’. It was recognised that more work needed to be done on the strategy, and that all the partners needed to be involved in this process.

Each Evidence for Action partner has a person responsible for communications related to the consortium. In most cases this person is a researcher already employed by the partner, without communications expertise.

The process

We decided to organise a workshop to develop country-level communications strategies, and increase communications capacity in both strategic planning and carrying out communications activities. Before the workshop each partner was asked to complete an Interest – Alignment – Influence matrix of stakeholders in their country. The workshop itself was facilitated by Enrique Mendizabal and Laura Jarque of ODI, who took us through the process of developing a strategy using various tools available in their online toolkits (http://www.odi.org.uk/rapid/Tools/Toolkits/index.html). Participants were split into groups for each country, and there was regular feedback and peer assist between the groups.

The third day of the workshop was devoted to capacity-building activities, with staff from the AIDS Alliance leading sessions on speaking and writing for non-academic audiences, and communities of practice.

Following the workshop, participants returned to their organisations, discussed the draft strategies with their colleagues, then revised and wrote them up. These were then shared with the Community of Practice, and an overall strategy (bringing together the principles from the first version of the strategy and the country-level strategies drawn up following the workshop). This was then shared with the Programme Management Committee, approved by the Community of Practice, and submitted to DFID.

Lessons learned

• Having external facilitators was very useful – it meant that we could draw on their experience, and everyone from the RPC at the workshop could participate in the group work.
• Getting communications reps to meet with colleagues before the workshop to work on the interest–alignment–influence matrices was useful to gain a wider input into the process of developing a strategy, and to increase knowledge and ownership.
• It is important that country-level communications strategies fit in with the priorities and interests of the partner(s) involved. The draft strategy for Malawi drawn up at the workshop did not fit well with Lighthouse’s priorities and interests, and little was done on it following the workshop as it was low priority. Once this was recognised, Lighthouse revised the strategy to make it more useful to them, making communicating strategically a higher priority.
• Following the workshop it did take more time than anticipated for the country-level strategies to be finalised, as communications reps needed to consult with colleagues and get approval from their organisations.
• The strategies that have resulted from the workshop are all very different in format and content.
• If we were doing it again, and had more time, I would consider including more activity planning in the workshop.
• As no-one from our Indian partners was able to attend the main workshop, a mini-workshop was held to develop the India communications strategy. This had the advantage that more people from that partner were able to take part, but it was unfortunate that they were unable to benefit from input from other partners, or assist other partners with their strategies.
• The workshop was useful and positive, and resulted in better country-level communications strategies than if we had asked partners to write strategies without the support and training the workshop provided. It also built up other communications skills, and strengthened relationships between the partners.