We have made a very important scientific breakthrough in the field of biomedicine. We have filed the patented and the scientific publication (in a journal with impact factor around 9.0) was published three weeks ago. Now we would like to make a huge impact and broadcast this as much as possible. Therefore we would like to know your opinion about how can we do this. We have already used twitter, facebook and linkedin, and contacted editors from Science and Nature so that they can mention our paper in highlights-like section, but no reply until now. We think that getting a highlight in such journals would be the best but we can not reach them and do not now how to do it efficiently. It would be great if you can share your experience here and give advice.
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Also consider highlights in other journals - for example Nature Rev Genetics and Nature Methods are both very high impact and also have "highlights".– BitwiseJul 21, 2017 at 10:23
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1Often journals will issue press releases as will universities.– Richard EricksonJul 21, 2017 at 14:46
4 Answers
If you think this discovery was big enough for Nature or Science then why didn't you send the article to either of these journals?
You can't tell people what to be excited about and if the work is good enough then it will make its own headlines.
In the mean time, speaking to your university press officer seems like a good start and they can put something out to local newspapers. If its big enough, then it'll be picked up by bigger outlets.
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3+1 for university PR. However, you have to keep in mind that the quality of the PR office can vary widely between institutions.– BitwiseJul 21, 2017 at 10:24
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Also journals have PR offices that will coordinate with university PR offices. Jul 21, 2017 at 14:47
contacted editors from Science and Nature so that they can mention our paper in highlights-like section,
We got highlighted in Nature after: having a biomedical publication submitted, and accepted in, one of the specialist journals of the Nature publishing group (NPG), creating a professional media package with the media office of our university (interview, summaries, pictures about our work - using different artistic styles), setting embargo date with the editors of the specialist journal, having media package distributed by NPG's internal system and local news agencies (the latter through the media office of our university) one week prior the embargo date, and obtaining large international media coverage upon lifting the media embargo, and becoming one of the most read articles of NPG of the month. Around two weeks after publishing our article, it was also highlighted in one paragraph in the main journal of the NPG.
Contact your institutions' PR office. Most have one, or at least someone who does press releases. They're often very receptive, as it always makes the university look good.
You can also directly contact some news portals like livescience or (gasp!) IFLS. If you can get into one, others often pick up. They're all using each other for leads.
I'm no Biologist, but here are a few ideas:
- Arrange to visit other relevant research groups/departments around the world; it's very customary for visitors to give talks presenting their own recent research.
- Reciprocal: Invite relevant people to visit your lab. Of course, the visit can't be mostly about being impressed by your work...
- Integrate your discovery in graduate-level courses, or develop a new one that incorporates it
- If we're talking about something applicable - write the first paper about applying it.
- There are all sorts of contests with prizes for research excellence - maybe your work qualifies somehow. That can also lead to more media coverage.
- Speaking of media coverage, try to get mainstream media correspondents to run a story about your discovery.
