Engineers are on the forefront of innovation and making scientific discoveries. They are often tasked with presenting their research and findings to the masses to showcase the impact of their work. Communication is a big part of research, and it is imperative for researchers of all disciplines to be able to effective express their results. However, a common challenge is trying to find the best way to communicate these results internally and externally.
Karin Schmidlin, Lecturer, Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre, has recruited the help of Bertrand Duguet as part of the student exchange program between Sorbonne Universities and the University of Waterloo to help explore possible methods to strongly develop interdisciplinary communication skills. Their mission is to help University of Waterloo students to create digital and audiovisual opportunities to showcase their research. Bertrand has been looking at the model of the 3 Minute Thesis founded by the University of Queensland. The 12 biggest universities of Canada are participating in this endeavor and in 2018, 187 students of UW have been registered. There is even internal and regional competitions for this.
They plan to proceed with internal and external communication strategies. Internally their targets are the students of the university of waterloo using the message of “what is the interest of sharing your research” as a prompt to lead their initiative. They plan to use survey data to find out what the students want, identifying weakness in the universities actual communications, and finding the appropriate tone to balance professionalism and “coolness”. Externally they plan to target undergraduate students as a whole, with the question “why is Waterloo University the best place to be a research student?” They are trying to devise how to include the project in the global communications strategy of the University and to find the best way to relay the students work, especially on social media networks.