Issues in Current Forms of Research Communication
In the course of our research journey we are expected to communicate our research plan and findings among the research community through existing structures e.g. research papers, academic presentations, book chapters, among others. While on the one hand these various forms of communication are necessary to establish a common language of communication for wider dissemination of knowledge, a strict devotion to structure, inhibits communication of certain ideas and ways of expression. The following examples will help to clarify this statement further.
Scenario 1:
A team of more than 50 individuals worked on a scale based intervention over a period of 2 to 3 years. This group wants to communicate its findings and processes among the larger community that comprises of researchers, practitioners, policy makers, etc. The most common form of communication to reach a wider audience is an academic journal. The journal has a structure to organize the paper that must be adhered to, word limit, author order, etc.
Issues
The group's knowledge of its work however, is divided among the group members and represented in various forms e.g. reflections of the team members, anecdotal incidents, embodied experiences, association of spaces, faces along with conventional sources of primary and secondary data. In addition, these knowledge forms are represented in various languages. There is no doubt that the group's knowledge will have to be re-organized for coherence and dissemination however, the structure of the journal will not allow the mentioned sources of knowledge. This means certain forms of knowledge will not be communicated. In addition, the author structure creates unnecessary hierarchy that is detrimental to the knowledge production process.
Scenario 2
A woman interested in science experiments has found a unique way to teach her children about plant life, physics and chemistry concepts. She wants to engage with the larger research and practitioner community however, is not very well versed with the structures of communications in these communities.
Issues
Communication processes need some level of standardisation for shared understanding and dissemination of knowledge. However, the increasing standardisation of these modes of communication means that it is harder for people outside these communities to engage with them. This is perhaps the reason that jobs like science communication even exist which are trying to make research more accessible.
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The more I think about these examples, I realize the exclusionary nature of these forms of communication and the need to adapt/change the structures to be more inclusive to different forms of knowledge and representations.
Solutions to the mentioned issues, in my opinion, rest within the very forms of communication I earlier outlined, to bring focus on the issue. It is not about, as I explain, inventing other spaces of research communication but challenging and changing the existing practices. In many ways, academia over centuries has been able to preserve certain core values of democratic dialogue that allow resistances. It is up to us to push the boundaries.
How can we push existing boundaries?
This question has no easy answer. However, let me share examples from history that continue to inspire me and have taught me to find alternative ways to engage and communicate research.
1. Dr.Rachel Carson's research and writing impacted environmental laws
Combining peer reviewed research on pesticides, its effect on living beings and environments with her creative writing style, Dr.Carson's work Silent Spring (1962) was read widely. She received staunch criticism from industry, politicians and others which she fought through her meticulous research to build a nationwide consensus towards the controlled use of harmful pesticides.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson#Research_and_writing
2. Authorship of the paper on the Large Hadron Collider
The research towards the collider comprised thousands of scientists who worked together over the years. The research paper on the same when published had an author list of 5,154 authors that broke all previous records of contributors to a single research article.
Link:https://www.nature.com/news/physics-paper-sets-record-with-more-than-5-000-authors-1.17567#:~:text=Thousands%20of%20scientists%20and%20engineers,to%20a%20single%20research%20article.
3. Bringing in wider audience for Research Engagement
A conference I once attended, on education philosophy and questions of race, offered travel grants to school students, teachers and other members of the community to participate. The result was that during the Q&A, questions forced discussion on important issues such as children's day to day experiences of race inequality, the way communication around race is coloured in a single discourse in academia, among others. It was a very productive discussion that left many with a sense of reflection.
Conclusion
There are many more examples of people pushing set standards and boundaries in case they inhibit communication of ideas. Some of these examples echo the purposefulness of research that motivated and challenged researchers to resist the status quo by initiating meaningful practices.
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