Your aim as a researcher is to produce quality research that is visible and has impact. It is also important to promote yourself as a researcher for various reasons including making contacts, demonstrating your skills and knowledge, and progressing in your career. Evaluation is a reality of the academic career, and competition between researchers to publish, acquire funding, and advancement is tough.

Today, research and dissemination of results is not confined to scholarly journals only. Many discussions and activities are taking place through other channels. Online tools and platforms can be just as significant in building your reputation as a researcher. Blogs, social media platforms, and other networks and databases are excellent opportunities for developing contacts, reaching new audiences, being visible, and participating in discussions. However, the demands to be active in every platform can be overwhelming. Your time is valuable, and it is important to prioritize.

There are a few simple things you can do to make you and your research more discoverable.

Get a researcher ID

Researcher IDs allow you to distinguish yourself from other researchers. They are unique identifiers that help avoid the confusion between researchers with similar names. They also improve bibliometric analysis and enable system interoperability. Researcher IDs have become standard worldwide. One of the most common ID's is ORCID.

ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) is a unique persistent digital identifier that links individuals with their various research outputs and distinguishes researchers from others with the same name.

An ORCID is a 16-digit ID number. Written like this, it can be used as a link: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5109-3700 (Laurel L. Haak, Executive Director of ORCID).

ORCID is recognized world-wide as a standard researcher ID and is already used by major publishers such as Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, and Springer. Many databases use ORCID including Web of Science and Scopus. As well, the Swedish Research Council’s application system Prisma requires applicants to have an ORCID.

ORCID keeps track of you and your research regardless of:

A change of name or name form
A change of country
A change of institution
A change of company or employer
A change of research field

Use ORCID when:

Submitting an article for publication
Applying for funding
On your researcher CV or resume
Registering your publications in the University’s publication database

ORCID Supports interoperability between systems. It is easier to import and export publications between databases. This means that it is easier for databases to find and index your publications as well as allow you to keep your research profiles up-to-date without a lot of work.

Create a researcher profile

Researcher profiles allow you to display your publications as well as other projects, conferences, activities, grants, etc. Like CVs and resumes, online profiles can display your research accomplishments, but they are also more visible, searchable, and connected to other researcher platforms.

There are many online profiles to choose from such as Linkedin, Research Gate, and Google Scholar profile. Besides making yourself visible or networking, social networks such as Research Gate can be used to share research outputs.

As a researcher at Luleå University of Technology, you can edit your personal profile page on the university website to include the information you want to provide.

To ensure that your publication list is complete, your User Name (the 4-6 letter university ID) must be provided to publications you register in the university publication database.

Researcher profile

Share your research outputs

Publications, preprints, conference papers, posters, presentations, research data, video, artistic works, code, etc. are all evidence of your research activity. Making these outputs available allows them to be used and cited by other researchers.

You can share your publications by depositing the full-texts and other outputs in publication databases and institutional repositories. The publication database at Luleå University of Technology is searchable through search engines such as Google. If you do not own Copyright to your publication, you can still register a record of the output. This will let others know the publication exists.

The university has a publishing policy which states researchers should deposit the full-text of all research publications in the publication database where allowed, and register the publication metadata where full-text is not permissible.

You may also want to consider sharing research data. Research data can be shared via databases and other platforms you can find via re3data.org

Many organizations and institutions already share data which you can access and use for your own research.

Make your research visible checklist

There are many other ways you can make your research outputs more visible. Below is a short checklist of some of the most common:

Use a unique name
Get a digital researcher ID
Create a researcher profile
Collaborate
Participate in conferences
Write in English
Publish Open Access
Register your publications in the publication database
Consider other publishing channels
Consider making research data available
Be active on social media and in social networks
Contact the Communications Office at Luleå University of Technology for tips and advice in getting your research out to a wider audience through the press, media, seminars, demonstrations, and other events.