the need for communication with the public and policy makers for agricultural economists exploting the potential of social media and open access. What can we learn for EuroChoices?

2. Krijn Poppe
Thanks to Alan Matthews, Dick Veerman and Wiley for input and support
Communication challenges for
agricultural economists and
EuroChoices:
are social media a solution?

3. Krijn J. Poppe
• Business economist, Erasmus University Rotterdam 1981
• Former Chief Policy Analyst Wageningen Economic Research
• Fellow and former Secretary-General of the EAAE
– Still involved in its journal management as secretary-treasure of
the EAAEP Foundation (ERAE, EuroChoices, Q Open)
– Chair Advisory Group EuroChoices
• Rli – Council for the Environment & Infrastructure: member of
the council
• Member South Holland Council for Environmental Advise
• Chair of the Agro-Expert Council Flevoland
• Member of the Governing Board of SKAL (Dutch Organic Control
Body)
• Co-owner of a family arable farm.

4. Need for researchers to communicate
Channel choice and timing problems
EuroChoices’ experiences in social media
Some best practices (Twitter, Blog, Digital Forum)
Role of Open Access
Questions for the future of EuroChoices
Content of the presentation

5.  Communication: we focus here on making own research available or
making an informed contribution to the policy debate more generally
based on other’s research
 Some communication channels include being kept up to date with
the field (through journal tables, webinars etc.)
 Social media: interactive digitally-mediated technologies that facilitate
the creation or sharing/exchange of information, ideas, career interests,
and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks, e.g.
LinkedIn, Blog, Twitter, Slideshare, Specific website (© wiki).
 Fake news: a risk or a reason to make a contribution?
Definitions

6. Researchers need to communicate broader
 Impact of academic research has always been important: researchers have to continuously
consider the impact of their work.
 The impact is mostly based on the publications of her/his research project in academic
journals. Traditional measures: impact factors and citations.
 Increasing trend of evaluations of projects, individual researchers and institutions (chair
groups, universities, research institutes) on broader measures of impact
 Research evaluators increasingly look to the societal relevance and impact of the research
activities.
 In project proposals dissemination activities ask for plans by specialists and specific work
packages.
 However: not every paper will have policy relevance. Replicate new findings
 Beware for box-ticking exercises on project websites, sstakeholder forum, etc.

7. You have a choice of many channels
• The communications mix involves all the tools to communicate with your (potential) customers: journal
publications, press releases, web site, social media, direct mailing, events, etc.
• Either for your institution, yourself (reputation management!) or your research project.
• Communicate research results, a research activity or even communicate through the research
process as in transdisciplinary research, collaborative action, citizen science?
• Planning (who is my audience, what is my message) is essential, as is trial and error to see what works
for you as a (young career) researcher.
• A major issue is timing. Some papers start a policy or societal discussion and decision making, but
most papers are by definition badly timed. There is no guarantee that the moment of publication of a
paper and a press release (or tweet) is in the same time frame as politicians, policy staffers, or business
strategist are working on the topic of your paper. Most likely you are too early or too late (and must
wait till the issue emerges again).
• Social media holds the promise to bridge this timing gap. Assuming you keep track of the policy
agenda and be aware of the timeline of attention.

9. Altmetrics
News - 8
Blogs - 5
Twitter - 1
Facebook - 0.25
Wikipedia - 3
Policy Documents (per source) - 3

10. Growth in Altmetric Attention

12. Top 10
downloading
countries
20%
14%
8%
6%
5%
5%
5%
3%
3%
3%
28%
United States United Kingdom
Belgium Germany
Netherlands France
China Ireland
Canada Italy
Others

13. Some best
practices:
LinkedIn and
Twitter

14. A best practice: the blog CAP Reform

15. What is it: Blog to provide evidence-based commentary from a public economics perspective.
Frequency of contributions: Around one a fortnight on average. Mainly providing
commentary on on-going agricultural and food policy developments, sometimes
providing a summary of a recent relevant paper or report. In comparison to other
blogs, posts tend to be longer (3-5,000 words)
History The blog was initiated by Jack Thurston in 2006 who was also one of the founders of
the website farmsubsidy.org. It was originally called the CAP Health Check blog and
was intended to stimulate discussion in the run-up to the CAP Health Check in 2008.
Various other authors have contributed to the blog by writing posts over the years, but
it can be a challenge to find the time to write regular posts and the blog is now
primarily run by Alan Matthews although occasional guest posts are also welcome.
Users # Around 1,100 weekly users. Largest single country group of users is Belgium, reflecting
interest among the ‘Brussels bubble’ – Commission, lobby groups, NGOs – following by
UK and Ireland (latter reflecting nationality of the blog author), and then US and
Germany. Obvious language bias.

16. Business
model
Self financed. Relatively low cost. One off cost
for web design, annual costs for hosting and
domain name, does not accept advertising.
Impact • Seen as informative in the ‘Brussels bubble‘
• Perhaps surprisingly, relatively little direct
feedback through comments.
• Does lead to direct queries from journalists
and students who see it as a source of
helpful information.
• Some spam comments, but no problems
with abusive comments.

17. A best practice: the webforum Foodlog (NL):
interaction and civil science, solving the timing issue

18. What is it: Web forum for public debate between citizens, researchers, journalists, policy makers
Content: media aggregation of food, health, food chain, energy transition, covid-19.
And columns / policy statements by researchers, decision makers in farm organisations
/ companies / ngo’s. Active moderation to keep discussion going, healthy and unbiased.
History 2005: Start by Founding CEO and moderator Dick Veerman (former banker,
management consultant who had to change his life in a personal health crisis). Telling
stories on food and health, based on an example in marketing. Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn had yet to be invented!
2011: 50,000 readers make more professional software necessary. Content
management system with excellent tagging / knowledge repository
2019: paywall for articles after 3 days (2021 for 2, in 2022 for 1 + comments paywall)
Users # 2,7 mln. unique readers/devices (mostly mobile), 120.000 ‘hard core’, 1050 paying, 20
company contracts. 50% of readers are consumers/citizens, 50% has a professional
interest.
Foodlog / AFN is interested in collaboration, especially on Africa & EU-African matters

19. Business
model
Loss making. Deficits paid from consulting projects / speaker fees, organising
congresses (now digital like IFAMA congress). New business development:
content provider for media, English version: AgriFoodNetworks.org (Digital
Food, S2S – Soil to Stomach, Trade-Logistics-Processing, Africa, Governance).
Platform
motivates
participants
Researchers: signal their competence, rewarded by journalists / professionals
with attention in newspapers, TV, invitations for talks. Helps to manage your
reputation / ‘brand’. Solves timing problem between research output and societal relevance.
Citizens: Specialised news for free, in a quality context. Learn about topics
they are interested in and can react with a contribution or even become a lay
expert on a topic. Can lead to collective opinion on a topic.
Professionals: keep up to date, learn the sentiment and different views
around a topic, can informally express undocumented company / farming
insights to improve quality of the public debate.
Journalists: efficient way to get high quality background and find experts.

20. EuroChoices and the potential role of Open Access
 Once a policy maker has become aware of a paper, the pay wall can be an obstacle.
 Trend to open access publishing solves this problem. In recent years research financers are advocating
or prescribing Open Access. Journals are becoming hybrid or open access with the author paying an
APC (article publication charge). Publishers offer ‘read and publish’ contracts to universities.
 What are EuroChoices’ peers doing?
 Choices: free to read and publish, online only, paid by Foundations and AAEA
 Amber Waves: USDA-ERS magazine, free to read. Free to publish by ERS staff
 Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy: classical academic journal, hybrid
 Journal of Economic Perspectives: free to read and publish, funded by the Am. Econ. Ass.
 Vox.eu: website by CERP (a think tank). Free to read and publish
 The Conversation: a website for pieces by academics, free to read. No APC funded by
Foundations
 Significance Magazine: magazine and website. mix of free and subscription. No APC. (Royal and
Am. Statistical Society)

21. Discussion: choices for EuroChoices:
Would we start the journal in the same way now as we did in 2000 ?
In other words: what would we do if we had to start today with the same outreach
objective, given the current technology and social practices?
Can we improve the impact of agricultural economics and EuroChoices ?
Would we go for full open access? - is such a business model possible ?
Would we set up a discussion forum ? - is that still possible? Start with LinkedIn and
Twitter? Align with e.g. Foodlog in an international initiative ?
Would we go for digital only, publishing paper by paper (with perhaps the occassional
hard copy with the best papers on a special topic?)

22. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/communicating-research
https://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/reporting/six-web-based-tools-applications-
that-can-help-you-communicate-visually/
Website CAP Reform: http://capreform.eu/
Website Foodlog: https://www.foodlog.nl/
references

23. krijn.poppe@wur.nl
www.wur.nl
kjpoppe@hccnet.nl
Thanks for
your attention