Maximise your impact

We pride ourselves on publishing scholarship that is read widely within and beyond academe. We are therefore committed to supporting authors to maximise the impact of their research in terms of both online and offline dissemination. There are a range of simple ways to promote research and increase citations and many of these methods can actually be used to sustain the research lifecycle, explore new research questions, discover new sources of funding and to build relationships with potential research partners.

1. Add a line to your email signature – Add details of your new publication to your email signature and update your personal website regularly. 

2. Contact your references - It’s a good idea to email one or two of the main scholars whose work is central to the article you have published simply to let them know about your work and to point them in its direction.

3. Use social media - Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are currently the most effective for promoting your content to enable it to be picked up by other researchers and practitioners. Remember all the Bristol University Press and Policy Press journals are on Twitter too, and we’ll always retweet you! See our guidance for using LinkedIn. 

4. Write a blog post – Write a short and pithy article of just a few hundred words that summarise what you found and why it matters. We can publish it on the Bristol University Press/ Policy Press blog, or you can publish it on another relevant blog. Find out more.

5. Add to reading lists – Students form a critical pool of potential readers so try and make sure that your article is included in reading lists and course material. It may also be useful to approach a number of scholars that you know teach in the specific field in order to let them know that your article might be of value to their students.

6. Use the subject community – Send details of your publication around relevant listservs, specific interest groups and professional bodies.

7. Facilitate access – Make sure your library subscribes to the journal, and if not, recommend that it does! All our journals offer a free 3 month trial for libraries. You might also consider making your article open access. Ask your funding body or librarian whether they have funds to support gold open access publications.

8. Access marketing support – If you think your article has specific potential in terms of topicality and relevance, but would like some help promoting the article then please feel free to contact us for help and advice.

9. Be proactive – If you have a good idea – or if you even just want to discuss an idea – then do feel free to contact us. We thrive on engagement with research communities and therefore welcome suggestions and proposals from anyone who has a relationship (current or potential) with a journal.