The ICAR-Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture (DKMA), New Delhi, held a two-day workshop, “Science Speaks: Communicate Your Research with Impact,” at NASC, New Delhi, on 16-17 September 2025. Mahesh Chander, who participated in the workshop, shares his experiences here.
CONTEXT
The ICAR-DKMA held a National Workshop in New Delhi on 16-17 September 2025, titled “Science Speaks: Communicate Your Research with Impact,” focusing on boosting agricultural research visibility and societal impact. About 26 officers, researchers, and communicators from across India participated in interactive sessions and expert talks to strengthen the science-society connection. Dr Anuradha Agrawal, Project Director, ICAR-Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture (DKMA) coordinated the workshop.
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The Inaugural Session |
CONTENT
Mastering Research Presentations
Ms Sonal Dsouza from the Alliance for Bioversity International & CIAT discussed principles of good research presentations, emphasising audience mapping, storytelling, and design. Her clear explanation of the “What – So What – Now What” structure highlighted its purpose and audience engagement. She advised that less text and images improve slides, emphasising uniform font styles, simple colours, and a balance between text and visuals. Her presentation checklist of design Do’s and Don’ts helped prepare research talks. She also stressed audience mapping and storytelling for impact, prompting me to reflect on my style for clearer, more focused presentations.
In the follow-up on Mastering Presentations, she emphasised effective delivery through practice, especially with feedback, and strict time management. Presentations should stay within time, with each slide and point serving the purpose. I realised that being prepared, concise, and focused is as vital as slide design.
Post with purpose: Social Media Best Practices
Ms Mitali Ghosh Roy from ICAR-DKMA shared insights on ethical, effective social media use. She stressed professionalism, authenticity, and careful fact-checking, especially in today’s quick info flow. She highlighted the power of impactful visuals to reduce text and emphasised choosing words carefully for professionalism. Understanding the audience is key to creating engaging, authentic content. The session heightened my awareness of social media use and improved my posts to be more audience-focused and credible.
Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director General of ICRISAT and ex-DG of ICAR, briefly joined the workshop, engaging with participants.
Engaging with Media
Ms Sonal Dsouza’s session on media engagement was eye-opening, covering how researchers should engage with media—why it matters, what makes research newsworthy, and how to write, pitch, and prepare for interviews. She emphasised that media writing differs from academic papers, explained structuring a media release, and shared tips on pitching and soundbites through engaging exercises. Her media checklist included preparation, presentation, handling questions, and following up to clarify facts, with a reminder to thank media professionals. Her interactive approach, especially the exercises, not only boosted my confidence in communicating research to broader audiences clearly and engagingly but also made me feel engaged and involved in the process.
Ethical Standards and Scholarly Publishing Practices
Dr Smita Sirohi, a National Professor at NIAP, gave an insightful talk on maintaining integrity in research, responsible authorship, and editorial conduct. It was especially relevant, as many of us have been involved in research publications in various roles—authors, reviewers, or editors.
Dr Sirohi discussed issues like duplicate publication, gift authorship, and plagiarism, making the talk relevant. Her role play made the ethical dilemmas in research engaging. A key point was her explanation of the CRediT contributor roles—conceptualisation, data curation, analysis, funding, methodology, administration, resources, software, supervision, validation, visualisation, original writing, and review. This framework clarified how contributions should be recognised, often suggesting acknowledgement over authorship.
The Authorship Jigsaw exercise was engaging. We reviewed a case study on Digital Tools for Climate-Smart Agriculture, mapped contributors’ roles to the CRediT taxonomy, decided who should be authors or acknowledged, and determined authorship order. It pushed me to consider fairness, transparency, and ethics in team credit.
Overall, this session enhanced my understanding of the responsibilities involved in publishing and reviewing research. It has made me more aware of how I make authorship decisions, ensuring I maintain integrity, fairness, and accountability in my future publications.
Pitching with a purpose
In this session, Ms Sonal Dsouza elaborated on the difference between a pitch and a presentation and how to build an elevator pitch with a clear value proposition and impact focus. Among all topics, pitching felt most new to us, as we had little exposure. I especially enjoyed the practical exercises, such as taking five minutes to reflect on our work, writing it down, and presenting it as a concise pitch under one minute. The challenge was to communicate our work’s essence to capture attention, highlight impact, and persuade funders or the public. This exercise made me realise how a pitch differs from a research presentation; it demands clarity, brevity, and impact in a short time. Ms Dsouza’s approach was insightful and pushed me out of my comfort zone, but it also made me feel prepared and confident, emphasising the importance of summarising complex works persuasively.
Overall, this was a very engaging session that broadened my perspective on how to communicate research and institutional work effectively to different stakeholders.
Leveraging AI tools for Communication
The session by Mr Abhishek Gupta, Founder & CEO of Navgurukul, Igatpuri, immediately captured everyone’s attention as he discussed a new area—AI tools for communication. He explained how AI can enhance speaking, writing, and connecting, which felt both exciting and relevant in today’s fast-changing world. Listening to him, I realised how quickly AI has moved from a futuristic idea to a key part of everyday communication—from chatbots to content creation. His enthusiastic style and live demos made the session even more engaging, sparking curiosity and interest.
My biggest takeaway was understanding how AI can be thoughtfully integrated into our communication strategies to make them more impactful, efficient, and adaptable. It made me realise AI is not just a future tool but something we should start using effectively now. This practical insight left me feeling equipped and ready to adapt to new technologies in our communication strategies.
He also highlighted how AI can improve clarity and consistency in our writing and overall communication. With tools like ChatGPT gaining popularity, it was insightful to hear how we can use these creatively to sharpen our communication.
What stood out was the practical relevance—often we struggle to express complex ideas simply and professionally, but his session showed how AI can help. Many participants found the session highly useful for its novelty and immediate application.
Personally, I left convinced that AI is a powerful aid in becoming a more effective communicator.
Mr Punit Bhasin, CTO of ICAR-DKMA, discussed selecting pictures and illustrations for publications, emphasising that “one picture is worth 1000 words” if carefully chosen. He noted that poor-quality images often lack appeal and clarity. He underscored that while words are essential, without the right visuals, the message can be lost to the audience.
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The Valedictory Session |
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Effective Communication Matters: Conveying research outcomes clearly to farmers, policymakers, and the public enhances the impact of scientific work.
- Clarity and Visuals: Well-structured reports and high-quality visuals are crucial for professional and impactful communication.
- Practical Learning: Workshops provide hands-on experience to improve message delivery and communication efficiency.
- Experience Sharing: Real-life examples from senior scientists help participants understand challenges and best practices.
- Capacity Building: Such initiatives strengthen young researchers’ skills and increase the global visibility of Indian agricultural science.
- Future Applications: Skills from the workshop will support upcoming programs like VKSA 2025, enabling effective reporting of scientists’ interactions with farmers.
- Recommendation for Wider Outreach: Participants recommended organising similar workshops in multiple zones to benefit a broader community of scientists.
END NOTE
Attending this workshop has improved my ability to communicate messages with greater clarity, efficiency, and impact. I am confident that this experience will be especially valuable for the upcoming Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan (VKSA), scheduled from 3rd to 18th October 2025, during which we will report on scientists’ interactions with farmers nationwide.
The workshop effectively highlighted the importance of communication in science and provided participants with practical skills to present research outcomes clearly. Through interactive sessions, feedback sharing, and reflections, participants gained actionable insights to increase the reach and influence of their work, strengthening the links between science, farmers, and policy across India.
Dr Mahesh Chander is Principal Scientist (Agricultural Extension) and Former Head, Division of Extension Education, ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar-243122 (UP). He is the Nodal Officer, Publicity & Social Media Coordinator at his Institute. He can be contacted at drmahesh.chander@gmail.com.
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