Role of academic communication in net-zero transition

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But now onto the subject of this episode!

What is the role of academic communication in net-zero transition?

It should not be a surprise to you when I say that there is lots of research done that doesn't get read and doesn't reach the intended impact. Yet, academics and researchers working at the forefront of their respective fields produce new interesting outcomes every day. Then we neatly package this into a journal or conference article and submit it for publication.

And, sadly, in many cases, this is it. Even though our research papers can get published in prestigious journals, they may be found, let alone read, by hundreds of people interested in this subject - provided they have access or the paper was made open access. This will, indeed, result in several dozens of citations to our work, allowing others to build on our work.

But I believe that the answers that we create through our research are of interest to a much wider community interested in the net-zero energy transition. In my research group, for example, we create solutions that address the key challenges in carbon capture and hydrogen production. One of the key challenges that prevent us from deploying net-zero technologies now is the fact that these are often more expensive to build and operate than their fossil fuel counterparts. That is why we innovate new process designs that can reduce the energy requirement and cost associated with these net-zero technologies or explore blue-sky ideas for new net-zero concepts.

These ideas, solutions, concepts and answers could be of interest to policymakers and professionals who will actually lead the deployment of these technologies. They need to know:

• what is possible
• what are the benefits and downsides (economics, environmental impact, risks)
• how it can be achieved, and
• when such a solution can be deployed.

Therefore, it is our role as academics to communicate our research as widely as possible and help others use it! We're producing research to develop solutions to the challenges of net-zero transition. We, therefore, need to reach relevant people in industry and policymaking and share our findings on how these challenges can be solved.

As academics, we understand each tiny bit of our research. We are, therefore, the best person to communicate it with the world. We are the AMBASSADORs of our work.

How can we communicate our research?

Academic journals

I do publish this work in academic journals because I find the mechanism of peer-review useful to verify whether my work is sound and whether I've considered everything in my assessments. I also believe academics should subject their work to the peer-review process for just that reason.

And many of you actually read research papers, which is encouraging! When I did ask you whether you read academic papers two months ago, 82% of you confirmed that you do read them. This is indeed promising and justifies that academic papers will still be an important medium to communicate research.

But there were also a number of interesting comments under the post that raised some issues with publishing in academic journals. I want to reflect on the two main issues of academic publishing in this newsletter.

Issue #1: Accessibility

The number #1 issue associated with publishing our work in academic journals is research accessibility. In many cases, we do publish in subscription journals so that we don't have to pay $3k-$5k for article processing charges. Although I'm associated with some of the largest publishers, I still struggle to understand why their business model relies on charging authors to make their work openly available. Surely there must be a better and more sustainable way!

Looking from your perspective, you may find that the majority of research papers are behind the pay-wall and that you cannot access them without paying $20-$50 per article. This is what, in my view, prevents knowledge exchange and stops you from accessing the latest research outputs.

"Part of the issue though is WHERE it ends up getting published. If it's not freely accessible, it's not usable."

"It is always a little bit of an issue to find up to date papers that are freely available. Papers can be used more often if they are easily accessible"

"Really we should be rewarding researchers who engage open science and make sure that others can directly apply their learning.?"

Issue #2: Clarity of information

Another issue that you raised is related to how academic publications are written. These are usually written in a way that requires you to have some degree of expertise in that specific research area to understand the importance of the research findings. Of course, a research paper needs to demonstrate academic rigour and explain the methods in detail. Hence we often see many equations and derivations in such papers.

But when we consider how research can contribute to net-zero transition, it is the implications that matter (so what we've learnt?) rather than the methods used (how we did it?). My personal approach to writing is to keep my writing as simple as possible and I try to write my papers with academic, industrial and policymaking audiences in mind. But not everyone does this.

"Papers need to be accessible in such a manner that a non-expert can translate the knowledge/value quickly into a valuable product or solution."

Trade magazines

Another route to disseminate our research is via trade magazines. In the context of the net-zero energy transition, these are publications tailored to professionals working in the energy and industrial sectors.

These allow us, academics, to share our reflection on the implications of our research to the actual industrial challenges. Trade magazines may reach a wider audience than journal papers, mostly because these tend to be freely available. In my research group, we tend to publish a research paper first and then write a corresponding trade article to increase impact.

Here are some examples:

Research article: Hanak, D. (2022) Environmental life-cycle assessment of waste coal pellets production, Clean Energy, 6(1), 765-778.

Trade article:?Hanak, D.P. (2021), Can recovery of coal tailings and waste help us make a step closer to net-zero targets?, Process Industry Informer, 17(4).

Trade article: Hanak, D.P. (2021), Recovery of waste coal fines, IEA Clean Coal Centre.

Research article: Santos, M.P.S, Manovic, V., and Hanak. D.P. (2021), Unlocking the potential of pulp and paper industry to achieve carbon-negative emissions via calcium looping retrofit, Journal of Cleaner Production, 280, 124431.?

Trade article: Santos, M.P and Hanak, D.P. (2020), Can an energy intensive industry become carbon negative?, Process Industry Informer, 16(6).

These are just a few examples of how we can use trade articles to enhance knowledge exchange between academia and industry, to maximise the utility of our research and solve the challenges of net-zero transition.

Social media

Finally, digital scholarship has become an increasingly important medium to share research outputs. As you could have probably noticed from what I post, I often use LinkedIn to share my research outputs and discuss their implications. I do believe that social media in general play a key role in enabling discussion and knowledge transfer.

Many platforms congregate professionals interested in the net-zero energy transition. Therefore, there is no better place to share research outputs directly with industry professionals and policymakers.

I will talk more about specific examples of how we can use social media, especially LinkedIn, to disseminate research outputs in my live session next week. You can subscribe below.

But the issue is trust and accuracy of results. Do you trust the results posted on social media that were not initially peer-reviewed?

Final remarks

Thank you for reading this episode of Net-Zero Academic. I trust you now see that academic communication and making research open access is key to knowledge transfer that can accelerate our transition to a net-zero economy.

I'll host a Next-Zero Academic Live session next Wednesday and you can find details here. Make sure you sign up for the event!

If you liked this content,?buy me a coffee!

If you did not like something, please do let me know too! Also, if there is anything specific that you would like to learn about, please do let me know!

Thank you,

Dr Hanak

PS: If you enjoyed this newsletter and learned something new, share it with a friend!

PPS: If you need consultancy or training in process design and process economics, green energy transition, industrial decarbonisation, carbon removal technologies, I am open to discussing how we can collaborate together!