10 Reasons Why Researchers Ought to Reach Out to the Public

It is true that research is an extremely extensive and tedious task, hence it is hugely time consuming. But these days, with growing number of journals that allow you to publish thesis online, researchers and academicians are feeling more confident and motivated to work towards the task, because scope of publication has broadened. There are more opportunities and greater chances of acceptance with many open access journals. However, to produce quality work visibly, a researcher also requires to reach out to the public; the real buyers of his research who are still away from a scientist’s academic world; who reside in the real world of common human beings.
1. Reaching out to the public helps a researcher understand his market. Audience generally accepts works on relevant subjects. When a researcher, reaches out to the public, he is able to know more about topics of current interest among them.
2. Reaching out to public also allows him to study his audience. What kind of people will read your research and what percentage of the population is that are factors important to a researcher when he is working on specific topics. A researcher may have a genre or field on his own, in which he is comfortable, but he needs to know his type of readers.
3. Interacting with the public directly, gives information which you may not have inside your office space. Practical field experience with real people can give you much more to work on, than bookish knowledge.
4. Reaching out to public improves a researcher’s communication skills. Sitting at home, writing research works, and then publishing them too from home, thanks to journals which allow you to publish thesis online, doesn’t require much formal self-representation in person. When you seek to understand actual population, your verbal and communication skills improve, which become helpful while promoting your work.
5. Social media has made everything virtual these days. Meeting people, talking to them, commenting on something happen virtually. In this virtual space, getting the spines of actuality is sometimes necessary. Some programs are being formulated to give this kind of a training to researchers and academicians, in order to make them more profound and experienced. Reaching out to the public personally, can also train you towards actual world matters.
6. Reaching out to the public strengthens your population survey. This method of researching can also improve the quality of your paper. It is always better to interact with the actual population rather than getting a dataset from some source to work on.
7. Those who choose to publish thesis online, generally prefer to stay at home and work; serious research tends to make a person shy and socially reluctant. But when you challenge yourself to meet the public, you are forced to interact, meet more people and talk to them. Reaching out to people makes you more open about yourself and develops your social skills.
8. Reaching out to people makes you a more responsible researcher and innovator. Many summits and organizations have made mandatory rules for responsible researches and innovations. In 2013, the European Commission (EC) increased the momentum behind all of these topics by bringing them under a common policy framework as part of Horizon 2020 (H2020), the EC funding program for research and innovation that covers 2014 to 2020. Known as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), the framework “brings this holistic view of different key issues in the complex relationship between science and society,” says Ignasi López Verdeguer, the director of the Department of Science and Research at “la Caixa” Banking Foundation in Spain and coordinator of RRI Tools, an EC-funded project that gathers information about what RRI is and how to implement it. The EC is not alone in its efforts to promote socially responsible research. UNESCO highlighted the growing importance of RRI principles globally in its 2015 science report. So now it is also because you have to do it.
9. Responsible researches and innovations are more likely to get good funding. That is, if you work with your field experience, it makes your work better than others in terms of money as well, whether you choose to publish thesis online or traditionally.
10. Finally reaching out to people help promote your work; the key idea why you should meet people. You research needs to reach its objective, i.e. the public. Hence you need to go out and talk to them about your work so that they are interested to read it. But firstly, they need to know about it, and what’s better than from the horse’s mouth, i.e. the scientist himself. Besides, technical and scientific languages are still Latin and Greek to many. Talking directly to people allows you to make them comfortable with your language and style of work, such that they are likely to become future buyers of your work.

A research is not the only thing a researcher cares about. The public, the audience is also important. So direct communication with the public is a part of a researcher’s job to make his career and works successful.

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