By Lea Laursen Pasgaard, AAU Communication. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication

- If you work with basic research, you’re not exactly deluged with calls from Danish media to share your research with the outside world.

According to Maria Simonsen, Postdoc in the history programme in the Department of Politics and Society, the Twitter profile allows you to communicate your research as you see fit, and give the wider world greater insight into everyday life as a researcher. She and her colleague Postdoc Anette Larner are the creators of AAUforskeren, a Twitter profile that in only two months has managed to attract more than 475 followers – including journalists, politicians, researchers from other Danish universities and various industry professionals related to the university world.

New AAU researcher profiled every week

The profile operates independently of official AAU social media. Each week, a new AAU researcher is at the keyboard with free reign to tell the world about their own research.

- We want to use this profile to break out of the ivory tower and reach out to politicians, journalists and NGOs. We want to draw more attention to AAU and the excellent research being done here. When the media needs experts, we want them to call here – not just the University of Copenhagen, Anette Larner explains.

According to the University Act, researchers are required to disseminate their research to the world. Maria Simonsen and Anette Larner see disseminating research on Twitter as a good complement to dissemination via traditional media. As younger researchers, they find that it can be a challenge to get speaking time or column space in the media.

- If you write an op-ed for a newspaper, it has to be both relevant to society and current. On Twitter, there are no restrictions on what you can write about. You can write about any research. Nothing is too geeky, says Maria Simonsen.

Anette Larner adds:

- On Twitter, you can share your research and be part of the discourse without being a 'known' name. This offers entirely different possibilities, she says.

Debate on external research funding

Anette Larner used her week as a host on AAUforskeren to discuss working conditions and the universities' internal competition for external research funding. It ended in a Twitter dialogue with Camilla Gregersen, Chair of the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs, and by the end of the week she had about 24 more followers on her personal Twitter profile. The same thing happened to Maria Simonsen when she managed the profile for a week.

- Many more of my colleagues now know what I’m working on, and it has also helped expand my research network at other universities, says Maria Simonsen.

Researchers from all faculties are welcome to tweet

The eight researchers who have tweeted so far from AAUforskeren all come from departments at the Faculty of Humanities (HUM) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (SAMF). Maria Simonsen and Anette Larner hope that researchers from the PhD level and up at other AAU faculties will join them at the keyboard. In the coming weeks, STEM researchers (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will assume the host role.

- You don't need to have a Twitter profile to join, and we're happy to help our colleagues get started. Individual hosts have approached the task in very different ways. You have to be prepared to tweet a few times a day, but you’re not tied to the profile 24/7, emphasises Maria Simonsen.

The organisers hope that AAUforskeren’s progress on Twitter will continue.

- In a year, I hope the profile has 2,000 followers and that it contains tweets from all over the university. In addition, my great hope is that we see more AAU researchers in the media, says Anette Larner.

Staff members as communicators

Martin Bylund Larsen, Digital Communication Advisor at AAU Communication, is responsible for AAU’s official social media. He applauds the researchers' initiative on Twitter.

- It’s wonderful that our researchers are taking the initiative for disseminating their work. We no longer live in a world where only the management or communication staff deal with communication. Social media has completely changed the way things work. Organizations are increasingly incorporating the notion that "everyone communicates" into their communication strategies – it's simply part of the media reality we live in now, he says.

According to Martin Bylund Larsen, Twitter is well-suited to communication for several reasons. First, all profiles are open, so you don't have to connect to write to others – you can just do it.

- In addition, Twitter is a solid search engine, so with the right searches and hashtags, you can follow just the right conversations and make sure your own tweets are more easily found under a certain agenda, says Martin Bylund Larsen, referring to the hashtag #dksund for health or #dkgreen for sustainability.

Three quick tips to get started on Twitter:

Start listening. Follow the profiles and hashtags you find interesting and see if they have value for you. Be curious.
Social media is a dialogue, not a monologue. Ask questions, and respond if others answer or tag you.
All newly created profiles start with 0 followers. Make it a habit to tweet regularly, and go for providing value and insight. Results will come with time.

Want to join in?

If you are interested in disseminating your research through the Twitter profile or simply hearing more about the possibilities, please feel free to contact the organisers, Anette Larner and Maria Simonsen.

Find AAUforskeren on Twitter here