Communicating Research Results:
The Pros Give Advice

by Steve Salterio and Rajib Doogar, on behalf of the Research Committee

Our president, Joe Carcello, set as one of his goals upon assuming the presidency of the Section to encourage increased dissemination of audit research to nontraditional (i.e., nonpractitioner) audiences. Joe assigned this goal to a number of relevant committees hoping that something would be done. The Research Committee, in meeting this charge, decided to take a “bottom-up” approach and help Section members become better disseminators of their own research. After all, “if you give a person a fish you feed them for a day, if you teach them how to fish you feed them for a lifetime.” Hence, Rajib Doogar (with some help from Steve Salterio and Mark DeFond) set up a panel at the Midyear Meeting to give us some “expert” advice on how to approach this communication process. The Panel members were:

• Karen Nelson, Assistant Professor at Stanford, who communicates her research to regulators, legislators, the business press and nontraditional niche audiences such as investor newsletters.
• Barbara Roberts, USC Marshall School of Business Communications Director, whose full-time job is to promote the profile of the School in the media and beyond.
• Lawrence Evans, an economist at the General Accounting Office, who is frequently tasked with employing academic research to respond to mandates from Congressional Committees to provide information relevant to the legislative process.
• Lynn Turner, now at Colorado State University, but formerly an activist regulator in his role as Chief Accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Below are the top seven pieces of advice to academics we culled from the very thoughtful presentations made by all four presenters about how to target nontraditional audiences for research:

1. Before starting, learn about on-campus resources to help you communicate your research. For example, School- or University-level communications officials would love to help raise the profile of the School/University via helping you publicize your research results.
2. Understand the different needs of each target audience:
   a. News media wants research stories that grab an audience, frequently looking for conflict or who “wins or loses.” This is the toughest target audience for most academics to deal with, as reasoned thought and careful nuances can easily get lost. Communications officials are the key here, as they know who to call and can help you understand what level to talk to the media on.
   b. Regulators like the SEC—they keep on top of published research but working papers are always welcome.
   c. Congressional resources like the GAO—again, they keep on top of published research, so there is the most interest in working papers. Both of these groups need a reader-friendly summary and often a follow-up phone call to make certain that the significance is understood. When a working paper is best forwarded to either group is a judgment call. Certainly it should have stood up to some level of scrutiny via workshop or conference presentation prior to being sent. Also, research that reaches congressional staffers may result in requests for endorsements of legislation that are only loosely based on your research.
   d. Think about niche resources—your School’s/University’s alumni magazine, user group newsletters (e.g., investor clubs), or industry magazines (e.g., insurance) in addition to more traditional outlets like the Journal of Accountancy, The Internal Auditor, and similar professional journals.
3. Identify the top two or three messages that your research has for the target audience. Remember, attention spans are short and everyone is under deadline pressure. Think, “What would you tell your mother?”
4. Be prepared not just to talk about your own research, but to put it in context for the recipient. What does other research say? How new is what you are saying? What are the trends? What are the implications for the target audience?
5. Also remember you can contribute perspective to the media, regulators, and legislators by integrating the research of others into an informed commentary that does not necessarily represent “basic” research, but rather the scholarship of integration. One of the hardest problems that users of academic research have is understanding that any one research paper cannot answer all the questions the audience might have. As academics, we have to weave a story. “Expertise” in disseminating research to various audiences is largely a matter of telling a compelling story that places research (including your own) in a wider context.
6. Be clear about your biases. If the research is sponsored, state that it is sponsored and identify the sponsor. Make it clear whether the sponsor had any control over the dissemination of results. Unbiased research is one of the key contributions academics can make to the public policy debate.
7. Remember, there are limited (some faculty would say nonexistent) incentives for doing research dissemination to nontraditional audiences. So, carefully allocate time to this activity in the context of the other things you need to accomplish at each stage of your career.

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