09 Jul 2014
A PhD student from the University of Manchester has launched a social media platform which she hopes will help researchers at the start of their careers.
Gemma Sou says the more established platforms- such as linkedIn and academia.edu are useful for established academics, but not new starters.
The student who is studying international development, set up the website – called VivaVocepodcasts.com - to showcase and create a ’shop window’ for the work of early career researchers.
The website is currently aimed at Social Science researchers, though she hopes to expand it across all academia.
VivaVoce allows researchers to display a maximum of two papers, giving him or her the option to upload short podcast about their work, with direct links to up to two publications, personal websites, Twitter ID, and email.
As the site grows, the team also aim to install a messaging tool and other ways for users to communicate.
She said: “We’re increasingly encouraged to get our research ’out there’ and to have ’impact’ beyond academia. However, other platforms like LinkedIn and academia.edu are great for the more established scholars with a long list of papers to their name."
“But by focussing on ’what you do’, rather than ’how much you have done’, this perhaps could be a neat solution – though it’s very early days yet.”
She added: “Early career researchers do get involved in exciting and interesting projects, and it’s a shame they don’t get the exposure they deserve.
“And exposure counts for so much in today’s higher education climate.
“Perhaps this might start to change if this website takes off. I hope so.”
