Press and media outreach
Tips, advice and templates for press releases and external outreach
Are you looking for ways to reach out to the public with your research? On this webpage we list some of the opportunities at hand.

Ask yourself: is it new? Is it exciting to the general public?
Why research communication?
Research communication can be a lot of things. It can be everything from talking to colleagues and visiting conferences to addressing the members of the Swedish parliament as an expert and writing opinion pieces. But, on these webpages, research communication is talking to the public. Getting your results out there. At LU and LUSEM, we often talk about ‘the third task’, meaning that besides education and research, as a university we should contribute to the surrounding society. One way to do this is by communicating our research.
How?
The ’How’ focuses on: what should you do? There are plenty of options, but you can for instance:
- Contact a press communications officer at your faculty to get a press release about new findings out to the media.
- If you would like to interact with society and spread your message, you can tweet or blog about your views.
- You can also participate in lectures and events, for example. Or you can comment on current happenings in society, in news on the LUSEM website or perhaps on our social media.
When?
When should you do this? It all depends: What kind of research would you like to communicate? What kind of news angle do you have? If you are writing about labour history, then perhaps 1 May is a good day to publish a news article. You can always contact the press communications officer at the faculty if you would like to discuss possible outreach.
What?
That brings us to our final point: the ’what’. You need to know that the thing you would like to communicate, via a press release, for example, actually is a news item. Ask yourself: is it new? Is it exciting to the general public? The perfect news item is timely. If, for instance, you are writing about female entrepreneurs, then we can time the news item for International Women’s Day.
There are, of course, plenty of research that is important and relevant, but that does not fit into the media logic and therefore might not be fitting for general public outreach.