It’s amazing how some things just seem to flow when you start up after a break.
In July this year, I was approached to write some stories about innovative ongoing or completed work by researchers working with the Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation at Charles Sturt University.
It was a pleasure to collaborate with some really interesting early career researchers and research students to explain their fascinating work on a variety of topics. These include:
The impact of common herbicides on novel pasture legumes
The introduction of new dung beetles to southern Australia
Tailoring ewe management for different sheep enterprises
Are vegans and meat producers really worlds apart? and
Preparing pig producers for disease ‘invaders’
These articles highlight how researchers with the Graham Centre address ‘real world’ problems for people, communities and agricultural enterprises across regional Australia.
Targeted readers include fellow researchers and research institutes, agribusiness professionals and farmers as well as rural journalists.
Talking to these talented people has highlighted the importance of answering that ‘so what’ question in research communication, discovering and relating that line that explains, ‘This is why you should take notice of my story!’
These stories also provide examples of the ‘3Hs’ – Head, Heart and Hip pocket – in helping develop the ‘hook’ needed to attract readers and journalists to a research story.
[Read more in What makes a good research story?]
Taking a break from podcasts has also reminded me of the power of text for communicating research, and the associated images that, when combined with text, can tell a compelling story.
[Read more in It’s in print, so it must be right … right? and Seeing is believing]
So, if you like what you read in the Spring 2021 edition of The Innovator newsletter published by the Graham Centre, contact The Comms Doctor at contact@thecommsdoctor.com.au or @TheCommsDoctorAU on Twitter and Facebook, and we can discuss your next compelling research story.