By Dr Audrey M Plan, Research Engagement Specialist, Dr Sara M Esteves, IRC Postdoctoral Fellow and Dr Dorota Kolbuk, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin.
Since March 2025, the Postdocs Spotlight initiative at University College Dublin (UCD) has been providing a space for postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) from UCD and Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) to share their work and expertise, and connect with each other. We were keenly aware of the need for opportunities like this for postdocs, so as postdocs, we stepped up, took the lead and made it happen. We developed and submitted a successful application for seed funding from UCD Research Culture, managed communications and coordinated the call for applications, selection and logistics.
In September 2025, we took this initiative beyond the walls of the university for a public talk on research communication in the heart of Dublin, at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI). In conversation with two journalists, three postdoctoral researchers, on short-term research contracts, were invited to share their experience. One, develops new construction methods to solve the housing crisis in Ireland, another works on gender-based violence in armed conflicts, another studies Irish salt marshes and their potential for climate change resilience. They exchange views and experiences among themselves, with the journalists in the room, and with the wider public in attendance. The discussion is fruitful, their passion tangible, their expertise undeniable. Dynamic slides, stories, magazines, pictures; they explain their work to a mixed and diverse audience.
Like most postdocs, they are all excellent ambassadors for communicating research, and have little time and resources to do so.
Research communication: a constant challenge
There is wide agreement that communicating academic research, its process and findings, is vital for both academia and the public. Academic research in Ireland is largely publicly funded, through grant programs managed by Research Ireland or the European Commission. Contrary to the United Kingdom and its cut to research grants, especially in Arts and Humanities, Irish State-funded research in Ireland is set to increase in upcoming years. There is also a role for experts to inform public debates and policy decisions. Scientific literacy is key to ensure compliance with public health guidelines on vaccines, or sufficient understanding of risks associated with climate change.
Communication outside of their discipline or with the public at large is not always academia’s forte; and the current information environment is not helping. Academic rigor and caution, the awareness that progress is slow, cumulative, measured in decades, and that all knowledge is only ever tentative and partial, clashes with the need for “a good story” – an essential tool for anyone trying to communicate with the public. How to grab attention, in an attention-scarce society, without compromising on academic integrity by inflating our conclusions or their impact? How to balance complexity, accessibility and storytelling on the myriads of phenomena explored in academic research, from authoritarianism to zoonosis? How to communicate on work improving our understanding of mass atrocities, suicide, or sexual violence without cheapening the participation of actual people in our research by turning them into a tagline?
Add to this, that communication takes time and expertise. Academics spend years honing specific research and analytical skills, and less so mastering graphic design or social media communication strategies. Time is what postdocs do not have: their time is limited as they are not permanently employed at their institutions.
The untapped potential of postdocs
Postdocs are a diverse population, with two common points resulting in a third common challenge: they hold a PhD in their discipline, and are employed on short-term contracts that range in their length from a few months to a handful of years, on a specific research project. This varied and often short timeline means the clock is always ticking. Time is scarce for all in academia; for postdocs, ‘time is oxygen’. The number of postdocs employed on short-term contracts is on the rise in Ireland. They are in labs, in libraries, in archives; they publish papers, books, datasets. They either hold or support prestigious national and international grants, accounting for a significant amount of money to Irish Universities. They often also lead tutorials, lectures and seminars for our undergraduate and graduate students, and mentor our postgraduate researchers. They also know the value of bringing research to a wider public.
At our recent event at MoLI, all presenters had previously deployed innovative ways to engage beyond their own departments, from co-creating self-published magazines with local communities to partnering up with schools to intervene in classrooms. Plans for research dissemination and impact are staples of most grant applications, which research staff on precarious employment go through year after year, either as they apply for their own funding or transition from one PI’s project to the next. Short fixed term contracts leave little time to communicate research or build towards impact. Academia is still steeped in publish or perish culture, pushing many to prioritise research outputs over research communication and societal impact. The latter takes more time, is more difficult to measure and evaluate, and therefore to leverage for career development.
This adds to the general lack of visibility and recognition of postdocs as highly skilled researchers, or even members of academic staff. Engaging others with your research be they the public, policy makers or collaborators requires a sense of legitimacy and self-confidence that is difficult to develop for postdocs. They hold different titles despite similar career stages and responsibilities: “postdoctoral researcher”, “research scientist”, “research fellow” among others. Many have tales to tell of a lack of appreciation and recognition for their contributions or their level of expertise, like being directed to resources for students despite being staff. Despite years of experience, they are often mistaken for postgraduate researchers, or research assistants, even in their own institutions. Postdocs are often employed on a project where the principal investigator (PI) is a tenured member of academic staff. This means how, when and what a postdoc can communicate is entirely at the discretion of their PI , who becomes their de facto line manager. If and when the outputs and outcomes of the work are shared with the wider public, the need for a “good story” leans towards focus on one key figure, the PI, further reinforcing the myth of the lone genius and further dis-empowering postdocs.
An opportunity for postdocs and society alike
Irish society needs researchers who can contribute to and effectively communicate cutting-edge, innovative and impactful research. Postdocs are well placed to make essential contributions to both. Each session we have held through Postdocs Spotlight has demonstrated that it is time to unbridle the potential of postdocs as research communicators. Initiatives such as Postdocs Spotlight are a start, building on this requires approaches that navigate the challenges of short-term, publish-or-perish culture, lack of researcher agency and align the qualifications and expertise postdocs hold with their the role and status in the research ecosystem in and beyond Ireland.
The Auditorium: a research culture and researcher development blog 