Effective communication can help research-driven organizations achieve a wide range of goals:

• Highlight science that’s relevant to a public discussion.

• Encourage policymakers to rely on evidence.

• Find collaborators or commercial partners.

• Exchange information with a particular professional, geographic, or demographic community.

• Attract promising students, postdocs, and faculty.

• Make a sincere effort to fulfill a funder’s broader impacts requirements.

The goals of a science communicate project influence everything else, from choosing the right medium and telling the most effective stories to assessing overall success.

Zooming out and defining goals isn’t always straightforward, but it’s an invaluable opportunity to uncover differences of opinion among collaborators and to bring divergent views into alignment — at least within the scope of the project.

Successful science communication projects are tailored to a specific audience. Understanding who we’re trying to reach and where they are informs every strategic and tactical decision in the planning process.

The project goal defines who’s included in the audience. It’s important to get clear on who is — and isn’t — included in this group for several reasons:

• Effectiveness - Choosing the wrong mediums, platforms, frames, approaches, words, images, or representatives can sink a project.

• Inclusivity - Rigorously defining the inclusion criteria makes it easier to catch assumptions and biases about who does and doesn’t belong in the audience.

• Efficiency - Focusing on the correct audience reduces the resources spent pursuing people who can’t help us achieve the communications goals.

For example, the goal of “attract qualified postdocs to apply at our center” implies a very different audience — and a different set of tactics — from “find a commercial partner to bring our discovery to market” or “connect with members of the local community.”

The last step before developing the strategic plan is taking an inventory of the resources available for a project:

• Expertise — What data, insights, or opportunities can your research organization offer to your audience?

• Trust — What relationships has your team has already built with members of your audience? What does your audience currently know about your organization and/or other institutions you’re affiliated with?

• Material Resources — How much talent, collateral (e.g. research images), communication infrastructure (e.g. websites, email lists), and money can your organization invest in communication?

Strategy is the plan for using assets to connect with the audience and achieve the project goals.

When developing a communication strategy, I integrate research about the project (i.e. its goals, audiences, and assets) with science communication best-practices developed by social scientists and expert practitioners.

The ultimate purpose of strategic planning is selecting the right array of tactics to build and communicate with the audience. The action plan is the component of the strategic plan that explains in detail what will be done, how it will be done, and who will do it.

This is where it all comes together. Once the strategic choices have been made, it’s time to produce the media and get it in front of the audience.

Depending on the size of the project, I can

• coordinate with in-house communication teams.

• connect you with vendors I’ve worked with before.

• take the lead and contract the work to others.

No matter how the plan is executed, it’s vital to produce high-quality products that reflect well on your work and your institution .

Evaluating the outcomes of science communication during and after a project is essential for improving on previous efforts and — increasingly — to satisfy funding agencies.

While it’s listed at the end of this list, assessment has to be incorporated in a science communication project from the very beginning, both for practical reasons and because evaluation metrics should tie directly to the project goals.

Depending on the scope of a project, assessment can be a light lift done in-house or it can require contracting an agency that specializes in evaluation.

In either case, the research should be detailed enough to directly inform future iterations of the project. Stakeholders in a project should be excited about incorporating those findings in their future work.