When I started the interview with Raluca Alexandra Stana, a researcher at Roskilde University in Denmark, the headphones wouldn't work. I tried, disconnected, reconnected, checked the settings, nothing. After I fixed it, Raluca smiled: I had just unintentionally demonstrated her research subject. But more on that later.
I looked it up because I want to understand how scientific communication works in other parts of the world. In our country, from what I can see, it's not necessarily a lack of interest, but rather a lack of understanding of the mechanisms through which a researcher can go public. What do these mechanisms look like in Denmark, the most digitalized country in Europe?
Public communication is in the "job description"„
The first thing I learned: public communication is not a bonus, but an explicit expectation. „If we were to look at the job description, there are four things expected of us,” Raluca explained to me. „One is to teach, the second is to do research, then apply for funding, and number four: to engage in civic debates in your field.”
It's not just about abstract expectations. The university actively maintains a profile for each researcher, where all press appearances are automatically accumulated. "They have a very good engine through which they search for these mentions and send them every month through a newsletter that includes the latest publications of colleagues, the latest appearances in the media." The system on the one hand measures, on the other hand celebrates the public visibility of researchers.
Researchers receive the trust of the University
Are there strict KPIs? "We don't have any specific KPIs, but we can apply for a salary increase every year. When we apply, we can look at the job description and say: look, I, although I'm a lecturer, have done research dissemination at the professor level."„
Raluca confirms that she has received salary increases every year as a result of her communication efforts. „I think a key point of Danish society is trust. Every researcher receives this trust from the university to know how to divide their time and priorities.”
Training during the doctorate
But the infrastructure doesn’t stop at assessment and reward. It starts much earlier, during the PhD. „We had a lot of opportunities to choose courses that are related to the dissemination of knowledge, including how we use our voice when we’re on stage.” PhD students are invited to present their results not only at academic conferences, but also at events such as the Danish Culture Night. „During the PhD, we were invited by the Association of Danish Industry to hold webinars for their audience. For free, of course. But the opportunity for us was that we were learning to communicate for their audience, that we could get feedback.”
Raluca went even further, personally investing in digital marketing and writing courses for the general public. „I could have done without it,” she admits. „But I liked going deeper into this, because I think it’s really important.”
„"I wonder why my study matters"”
When he has a study he wants to promote, the process has a few steps: "I extract the essence, why this study matters, I make a little summary and send it to the communications people. And they decide where to allocate their resources."„
Raluca quickly understood that research communicators can't promote everyone, so she chooses which studies she highlights and how she presents them. "I only choose those researchers who could have the greatest impact. So how I communicate with my communication colleagues also matters a lot."„
Thanks to research, ticks can also become celebrities
Raluca gave me the example of a colleague who researches tick populations. „You might say: what’s interesting about that? At the same time, she is the most-mentioned researcher at our university.” She managed to involve society in her research, creating a website where people report whether they have encountered ticks in a certain area and whether the area is safe or not. „A very nice exchange was created: on the one hand, thanks to the data collected from people, she was able to write even more research articles, on the other hand, she made her studies known, but also useful to the whole society.”
Raluca's conclusion: "It's not so much about the subject, but about our abilities as researchers to make a subject interesting. The important thing is to have imagination, to be creative. And to manage to sell the knowledge we have in a language that is easy for people to understand."„
Research area: digital stress
And Raluca has really managed to do that. Her field – technostress, or digital stress – is the stress we feel as a result of our interaction with technology. „Whether directly or indirectly,” she explains. „For example, when you had these technical problems now, they certainly led to some level of stress in the body. Or the indirect stress can be this fear that we will lose our job because of AI, the fact that we will be overwhelmed when we return to work because we have too many emails.”
He has been studying the subject for about a decade, from a sociological perspective. Last year, a study on digitalization in hospitals „went viral, was mentioned, I think, in every newspaper in Denmark.” Last month, another study — on technostress in sailors on ships — appeared in about a dozen publications. Even tomorrow, he tells me, he will be speaking at Scandinavia’s largest technology summit, in front of 4,500 people. „There are only five or six of us from our university who will be speaking on stage, and the only ones who have been given a session dedicated to their topic are me and the university’s rector.”
But what motivates her the most are the messages from ordinary people. „I get dozens of messages from people in whose lives, the simple fact of knowing what technostress means, made a difference for them, because they knew how to articulate their experiences at work.” A Danish woman, Susanne Ø., wrote to her: „Many of the people I told about the webinar think that only people over 50 suffer from digital stress. I can’t convince them otherwise. But you have evidence that this is not exactly true.”
The gap between my background and the academic world is very large
Why does she care so much about communicating? The answer is personal. "I come from a fairly modest family. I think my grandfather only went to school for four years. For me, reading academic papers was a real struggle. Initially, I thought I wasn't smart enough to decode those papers, and I had a dictionary with me."„
When she had to write her first paper, she realized something essential: "This gap between someone who came from a background like mine and those who are already in the academic world is a gap that needs to be closed somehow, because behind a lot of very academic and very pompous words, sometimes there is absolutely nothing hidden."„
And further: "We have a duty to conduct research studies that can bring benefit to society. Let's not start from the idea that we need another published paper to increase our H-index and publish for a privileged audience. After all, we are paid with public money."„
You can start simply: what are you researching?
What advice would you give to a Romanian researcher who wants to be more visible? "We need to have the basics in place. First of all, a well-established Google Scholar profile, because Google Scholar is the platform that a person who doesn't do research would go to." Then LinkedIn: "A very clear profile, a very clear title. We need to give up on very pompous titles and be very concise: what are you researching? Economics? Ticks? Technostress?"„
And you don't have to wait until you publish your scientific paper to post. "Most people wait to post something when they've managed to publish. And these things happen very rarely. People forget about you until you manage to publish something else. It's best to post along the way. I often post about what great work I read, written by other colleagues. Then they're happy to be mentioned and I'm happy because I read something cool."„
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