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This chapter explores the various communication outputs produced by student-led think tanks to ensure their work reaches their key audiences.
A strong communications and outreach strategy ensures your student-led think tank’s work reaches your target audience, and attracts new members as well as potential funders. Some student-led think tanks have dedicated communications teams that develop strategies to ensure their work is reaching the target audiences.
Communications outputs from student-led think tanks include:
- Regular newsletters: GROW distributes newsletters to its audience, providing timely insights on key issues. Recent topics include gender bias in AI and pop culture moments such as Oppenheimer and Barbie, and their relevance to public policy.
- Social media channels: Student-led think tanks actively use social media platforms such as Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn. Warwick Think Tank and STEAR, for instance, have over 1,400 followers on Instagram, where they share updates on their publications, recruitment opportunities, and events. GROW posts actively on different social media platforms, including LinkedIn, sharing their work in both English and French.
- Podcasts: Warwick Think Tank has a podcast titled Fulcrum, where they bring in guests to further expand on their research topics.
- Forums/seminars/open events: STEAR organises events on Europe-Asia relations using various formats, including speaker panels, Q&A sessions, and town halls.
- Policy briefs: STEAR regularly publishes policy briefs on its website. Recent topics include Pakistan’s smog crisis, Italy’s youth unemployment challenge, and South Korea’s declining birth rate. GROW also produces policy briefs, with recent outputs about pre-trial custody in France, and the freedom of press in France.
- Publications (books, research outputs, essays): Warwick Think Tank regularly publishes articles on topics such as foreign affairs, healthcare, education, technology, and the environment. “Epis Magazine” is a quarterly publication by EPIS Thinktank, featuring academic articles from experts and students in politics and international relations.
- Personal meetings/closed events: Student-led think tanks also engage with stakeholders through online and in-person meetings and closed events.
“The think tank is present on various social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Threads. Nevertheless, we are mainly using Instagram and LinkedIn, on which people are the most receptive….Regarding policy briefs and recommendations that are addressed to a specific audience, we are directly sharing the content with them via email, and trying to organise personal meetings with them to discuss the result of our research.”
– Generation for Rights over the World (GROW)
CASE STUDY:
STEAR has a dedicated Communications team that promotes the think tank’s activities, events, and publications across several media platforms to reach the targeted interested groups. It also monitors communication performance and researches new ways of interacting with our audiences. It publishes research and policy pieces on its website, sends monthly email newsletters, promotes its events and publications on social media (Instagram, X, LinkedIn), hosts online speaker events open to the public, and publishes the STEAR Journal with longer research pieces on its website.
Further reading: