Galvanising your allies: Moving from communication to advocacy

Universities have extraordinary allies, but how can they defend and support you, if you don’t galvanise them?

1st April 2025

Via Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine blog.

For the past few decades, I’ve had the privilege of an insider’s view into the world of university research. I’ve met extraordinary scientists and listened to their stories first hand—stories filled with hope, determination, and passion.

I’ve celebrated with them in moments of triumph: prestigious awards, major grants, and exciting discoveries. And perhaps most inspiring of all, I’ve loved hearing about unexpected, serendipitous breakthroughs that show just how extraordinary our universe is.

University research is foundational to social, economic, and industrial progress. As the New York Times recently highlighted, research drives breakthroughs in medicine, technology, and environmental solutions—advances that directly improve lives. Yet their vital contributions remain invisible to much of society.

The threat to science and research is not theoretical, but deeply personal. Cures will be delayed, technologies will stagnate and opportunities for progress will be lost.

So why aren’t more people rallying to defend universities? Why aren’t they out protesting? Why aren’t governments falling over themselves to fund research?

The Missing Narrative

As a sector, universities have largely failed to craft a compelling and cohesive narrative that explains how their research has shaped society.

Effective communications build trust, so trust is a decent proxy for how effectively universities are communicating. And the numbers aren’t good. In the US, a 2023 poll showed that confidence in universities fell from 57% to 36% in just eight years. That is more than a 20% loss in less than a decade. This should have set off alarm bells across the sector that something needs to change. Yet many universities still seem stuck on autopilot with outdated communication strategies that are clearly not working as well as they used to.

The sector’s muscle for galvanising society around their work is so underused that it’s atrophied. The result is declining trust, social license and standing, which threatens funding from all angles—government grants, philanthropic donations, industry partnerships, and tuition revenue.

Too often, I’ve observed a learned helplessness around this, blaming external forces like the media or governments while failing to leverage their own immense power: alumni networks, influential students, industry partnerships, wealthy donors, policymakers seeking advice—the list goes on.

Of course, the increasing intensity of attacks from the Trump administration has been deeply upsetting. Yet universities are far from powerless here. They’re simply not owning their potential.

All is not lost. But instead of blaming outside forces, it’s time to look inward–and to rethink your strategy for the world as it is, not as you wish it were. It’s not enough to say that your university is a public good because it’s a public good. You must show people that it’s a public good. And that starts with better communications.

The good news

As Sir Mark Jeremy Walport, the former UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor once said: “Science isn’t finished until it is communicated.”

I would humbly suggest a slight change: Science isn’t finished until it’s communicated effectively.

Consider President Michael Crow of Arizona State University, who recently spoke about how research has been instrumental in creating transformative innovations like the iPhone, and how thousands of researchers and an enabling system were critical to that success.

As he said, academia is the “invisible hand that guides the innovations that touch all of our lives every day.”

It’s rare to see university leaders talk this way. The result: his talk went viral on LinkedIn, resonating far beyond academic circles. It’s a brilliant blueprint for how to start the repositioning of research in the public’s imagination. This isn’t about dry appeals for more funding based on GDP metrics. It’s about fundamentally repositioning research as central to everyday life.

Advocacy: A New Mindset

It’s not too late to turn things around. But to do that, we must reject learned helplessness and focus on using communications as a form of advocacy.

This is what Prof Crow’s speech was doing. He wasn’t just communicating science, he was advocating for research. He was linking research to industry, and, referring to Adam Smith’s famous invisible hand metaphor, positioning research as a powerful economic force. 

It’s a refreshing change to the usual approach to communication–from simply conveying what you do to inspiring people, who can become advocates on your behalf.

Communication isn’t just about press releases, brochures, or podcasts churned out by overworked teams—it’s about strategic tools for achieving institutional goals. Yet many universities focus on outputs (e.g., producing X news stories per quarter) rather than outcomes (e.g., building trust or influencing public opinion).

But if your goal is to turn people into advocates for you, it immediately shifts you into a more strategic mindset. Important questions come to mind: Who are your allies? How do I galvanise them? What do THEY need and want to know? What about allies that could support you more–like political stakeholders? How could you get them to engage more?

The same goes for critics: Who are they? What do they know about you, and what do you know about them? Why are they your critics? Are you engaging them, or dismissing them?

And finally–what about the disinterested, those who are neither allies nor critics? This is a large portion of the general public, who don’t connect research with their everyday lives.

A Call to Action

The research sector is at a crossroads. To protect its future, it must reject learned helplessness and embrace a communications approach that’s rooted in advocacy.

When you shift to an advocacy-based approach, you put your audience first. It’s about understanding their needs and tailoring your message accordingly.

Each group has distinct needs and goals—and failing to engage them means missing opportunities to build trust, goodwill, and social capital.

But one thing is true for all audiences: failure to engage is a missed opportunity to create supporters and generate the trust, goodwill and social capital that are crucial to success.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll take a look at the different audiences for universities, their needs and goals, and how to reach them. In the next issue, I’ll look at one of the most important audiences: government.

Until then, I’ll leave you with a question: what’s the best example of research communications you’ve seen recently?