The University of Kent encourages all researchers to share their work as openly as possible. Find out more about Open Research via collaborative working and sharing, and  the tools and platforms that can be used to conduct open research at each stage of the research lifecycle.

Get a website for your research project to share and promote your work.

Research.kent.ac.uk is a free to use, self service network of websites to showcase individual research projects from across the university, with long term support and training provided by the Web and Learning Development team. The benefits of a research.kent website are:

• Free to university staff and PhD students (with supervisor approval)
• Self-service access to create and change content
• An active website for the length of the research grant requirements (tyically 10 years)
• Integration with external systems and datasets as required
  
• Up to 500Mb of storage
  
• A stable and authoratitive URL (research.kent.ac.uk/sitename)
• Free offline website backup for archiving upon request.

Social media can help you to maximise the reach of your research and to engage with your target audience.   

Use social media to share a piece of your work, to support or promote another output, or even as a main output platform. It's a quick, straightforward way to reach large numbers of people and to personally contact people you haven’t previously worked with. Use our guide to get top tips to manage your social media for the most effective outcomes.

Add an early version of an article in a subject repository to time stamp your idea.

This can help accelerate sharing without waiting for a publishers process, exposes your research arguments to your peers, and can lead to further research and gain valuable critical input. You works can also be cited in job and grant applications, and other research contexts. 

Community feedback can be a form of pre-publication peer review, but from a potentially larger group of peers than a journal article or book proposal.

Before sharing check if your target journal has a policy against accepting papers which have been shared prior to submission.

Conferences can be used to share work in progress and solicit feedback, and conference outputs can be published in a variety of ways. 

The prestige of conference outputs varies according to the form, discipline and reputation of the event. When picking a conference, ask yourself:

• how will attendance contribute to your research?
• does the format of the conference output suit your needs?
• will the final output be freely available?
• is it a trusted conference? Think, Check, Attend can help you decide.

The richness in research at Kent means that we create a wide variety of outputs: video, performance pieces, sculptures, exhibitions, pictures, apps, board games, bridges and buildings, among many others.

Add your work to Kent Academic Repository to get an official record of the works and digitally preserve them. For questions about preserving your practice research ouputs in the repository, contact the Research and Scholarly Communication Support Team.

Share your research data, and describe its contents, to verify and show the works integrity, and create opportunities for reuse of your data with acknowledgement. 

Research data can include:

• observations, notebooks and lab books
• questionnaires and survey results
• interview recordings and transcripts
• videos and images of process, workshops and physical outputs, performances or exhibitions
• experimental observations, models and software code
• sketchbooks and developmental material.

Using a data repository will provide preservation, access management, and improve discoverability of your research. 

Writing a data managment plan at the earliest opportunity to plan which repository you will use, if costing needs to be considered, and how much access you can provide to your data.

Journal articles are a well established way of publishing research findings.

When choosing a journal consider the following:

• Does your research fit the aims and scope of the Journal
• Are you submitting your work to a trusted journal? Think, Check, Submit can help you decide.
• Do the journal level bibliometrics  allow you to get a feel for the journal's previous reach
• Consider source normalised or field weighted citation reports for the journal if you're aiming to publish a research output with a high academic audience
• Does the journal's Open Access policy meet your needs
• Is there a Kent Read and Publish Agreement available for the journal
• Use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to search for a Diamond Open Access journal that supports fee free publishing
• Consider publishing with a Kent Open Access journal.

Writing a book can arise from submitting a proposal to your choosen publisher or by being invited by a publisher.

Most major academic publishers have book proposal guidelines and editor contact details on their websites. When searching for a publisher to approach, ask if they:

• offer a peer review process
• are able to meet your timetable
• have services such as design and layout, indexing, copy-editing and proof-reading
• offer post publication services such as good review coverage or funding for a book launch
• publish in print or digital format. Electronic books can give you the opportunity to link to or include multimedia outputs
• will publish Open Access
• how the anticipated price of the monograph compares to similiar books on the target market. Does this help you reach the intended audience?

If you have been approached by a publisher

Being invited by a publisher to write or contribute to a book or series can be very exciting. However, its worth thinking about these key points before accepting the invitation:

• what is the reputation of the  publisher
• consider this as part of your longer term plan and whether it help or distracts from your plans
• if it will be published Open Access.

A policy brief is a great way of explaining your research in short-form way, without any jargaon, for non-specialist audiences.

If you are planning a policy brief, research report or lay summary, the 'How to plan, write and communicate an effective Policy Brief' guide is a great starting place.

Mass media is an easy way to get a key message to a very wide audience, raising general awareness of your findings, and enhancing your academic profile.

It can be hard to communicate the nuances of research, and the same output can be very differently received depending on other ongoing events. However, it can benefit society, inform policy, and promote the field of research.

If your research is going to be of interest to the media, consider: 

• commenting on relevant news stories to establish your reputation as an expert in the field
• contacting the Press Office at Kent to discuss publicity opportunities or media training
• publishing for platforms such as The Conversation
• working with KMTV.

click the button below to contact the Research and Scholarly Communication Support team about choosing where to share your research.