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pozible.com/ResearchMyWorld

CROWDFUNDING UNIVERSITY RESEARCH...because it takes a village to fund the answers

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

pozible.com

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 2

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Deakin team• Deb Verhoeven: is Professor and Chair of

Media and Communication at Deakin University

• Joyce Seitzinger: Lecturer in Blended Learning at Deakin University and is a leading advocate of social media use by academics

• Stuart Palmer: Associate Professor in Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment at Deakin University and is currently working on methods to characterise the use and impact of social media

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 3

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Research My World

‘Research My World’ launched in April 2013:• eight projects• spanning a range

of discipline areas and project types

• $5,000 - $20,000

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 4

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Research My World

• 6 out of 8 projects successfully funded

• Approximately $50,000 of new research funding generated within the campaign period. Total gross = $61,572

• Additional funding in excess of $50,000 raised since the end of the formal campaigning

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 5

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Research My World

• Approximately 200 media stories with a cumulative audience of c. 1.4m (and again, media stories continue to be generated)

• More than 3,600 tweets specifically referring to the initiative (including a prize tweet from Stephen Fry to his 5.5m followers)

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 6

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

pozible.com/ResearchMyWorld

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 7

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Traditional Media

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 8

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Incentives

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 9

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Social Media: Tweets and Retweets

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 10

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Social Media: Digital Presence

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 11

CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Social Media: Tweets & $$$

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 12

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Pledge Timeline: Mighty Maggots

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 13

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Pledge Timeline: All projects

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 14

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Broad benefits

• Disintermediation of research funding

• Reduction of “compliance burden” for researchers (and universities)

• Digital “presence building” for the researchers and their work including capacity building in digital culture/skills for the researchers

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 15

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Specific benefits

• Provide a unique opportunity to promote research in terms of its meaning to communities and not just other academics (‘to bring research home’). Successful funding campaigns relied on clear communication of projects and social and traditional media engagement.  

• Shift the way universities promote research in an increasingly networked environment

• Provide an additional funding stream for researchers, particularly those at the start of their career

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 16

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Specific benefits

• Focus effort on communicating with the public rather than labour-intensive, highly competitive, blind reviewed funding applications with diminishing success rates

• Provide ‘discipline-neutral’ opportunity; both science and humanities-creative arts were able to generate funds if community relevance was demonstrated

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 17

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Challenges

• the ‘digital capacity’ of individual academics

• the ‘digital capacity’ of academic institutions

• the difference between existing campaigns for crowdfunding and those specific to a projects with ‘research’ focus

• the public’s response to projects from different research disciplinesDeb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013

18

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Engagement-led research

• “I’m now more skilled (but with more room to grow) in the use of social media. I’ve also become more outward looking - more aware of who’s doing what beyond the confines of Deakin University and my world of research.”

• “I have a much wider digital footprint, have made many new contacts, discovered an astonishing array of actors in my field and defined that field more precisely as well as identifying new potentials for my research.”

• “I think this has catalysed me to take the first - the biggest and the hardest step in becoming digitally literate - specifically around my own profile. This is excellent.”

Deb Verhoeven , Research Australia, August 2013 19