Help, I am an influencer!
Yeah, you read right, I am an influencer. But likely so are you.
The term influencer has received a certain negative connotation over the past decades, as it is mainly used to designate people on platforms like Instagram or TikTok, that lure people into buying things or services, driving contemporary consumerism and often representing a curated version of life or reality. The Oxford English Dictionary simply defines the term influencer as “a person or thing which influences” or generally a person who has the ability to influence other people’s decisions about the purchase of particular goods or services, mainly via the internet or social media, but also one who uses their notability to endorse, promote, or generate interest in specific items or topics.
So strictly speaking, researchers may also be seen as influencers – but in my opinion, in the best possible way. As scientists, irrespective of paygrade, we are trying to produce and communicate evidence-based information, that inevitably should contribute to a better society. At KI, this mainly refers to better prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, but also overall improved health and wellbeing – ideally not at the cost of animals or the environment (as endorsed by the One Health approach, which acknowledges that human, animal and environmental health are linked and depending on each other – happy to write another blog post on that). As researchers, we are publishing, we are authors and knowledge producers. With every publication, we are suggesting implications for future research and practice. This means, we are trying to influence society, by endorsing, promoting or generating interest in specific topics, policies or behaviours, aligning with the precise the definition of an influencer. Another blogger from the Curie Magazine (@stina.biologista on instagram) came up with the term “sciencefluencer”.
Public outreach is an important aspect in research, one that is not discussed and encouraged enough. Besides scientific publications, researchers are encouraged to regularly show up in (social) media; be that on LinkedIn, writing blogs or articles on platforms like “The Conversation” (where KI is by the way an official member), give interviews, guest on podcasts, create explanatory Youtube videos, write articles for your local news or public speaking at non-academic events. Moreover, knowledge translation may be seen as the ultimate rationale in research, a topic discussed more in detail in a previous blog post. So, in short, the more you influence (i.e., via contributing to public outreach or knowledge translation, for instance), the more accomplished you are as a researcher. As eventually the impact on society should be seen as the ultimate measure of scientific success.
Do you agree?
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