Camcomm

  • reinforcing communication, connecting people in European research
  • uniting research and communication

CAMCOMM is a communication project, based in Danish Universities, facilitating co-operation between CAM-researchers in Europe. Sponsored by a private foundation, which supports several CAM-research projects. As part of the project a website will be prepared, designed to give access to e.g. relevant networks, up-to-date information of national activities, conferences and websites from the participating countries.

What can you and your research institution do?
I want to get in touch with contact persons in CAM research centres of excellence - if possible, a person with some kind of overview of CAM research in his/her country. If a communication professional is employed at the centre, it would be a great advantage.
In some countries this task is managed by a “national CAM centre”, formalized by the government, but in most countries this is not the case.

How?
Drop me an email with your contact information, and I will get back to you. This is my email

Why?
There are a lot of ressources in the European countries, but very little co-operation. Building an easy-functioning and reliable network and enhancing the understanding of the role of communication will optimize the research conditions and the exchange of information and ideas across the borders.

All of us, not only Denmark, can benefit from improving the communication and co-operation between our countries. Reinforcing communication will make it possible to exploit to full extent the fairly small funding available for this kind of research. And it will make it possible for the researchers to co-operate much more systematically.

The strategy

  1. mapping CAM research centres of excellence in Europe
  2. identifying contact persons or communication professionals in the centres
  3. identifying and analyzing the needs of communication at the centres
  4. preparing a communication strategy and a technical platform for the project
  5. setting up a small international group dealing with strategy and tools of communication and investigating possibilities of additional funding
  6. design and implementation of website
  7. implementation in the CAM research network

This project is supported (not financed) by the two multidisciplinary CAM research groups in Denmark (see www.galilei.dk/?p=20)

Background
International CAM-networking and communication could be much more efficient, and one of many reasons is that the importance of professional communication skills and -tools is often underestimated.

In the business community, people have been aware of the close relationship between management, production and communication for many years. In academia, there is a growing understanding that this relationship exists in knowledge production as well, and that research communities can benefit strongly from making communication part of their projects. And that the “we just don’t have the time for this” has to be overcome.

Denmark, unfortunately, has been very slow getting into international communication. In the summer of 2006, I posted an article in the ISCMR newsletter (June 2006 Volume 3, No. 2) about the Danish CAM situation. You will find it in the English section here.

Why is communication an indispensable component in research projects?
Because doing research basically is the same as doing any other kind of business. The main difference is that the product is knowledge, instead of sausages or mobile phones. But whatever you do, your success depends on the stakeholders.

Stakeholders are those who have an interest in what you are or may be doing, because they will be affected or may have some influence. Project stakeholders are those entities within or without an organization which sponsor a project or have an interest or a gain upon a successful completion of a project. Examples of project stakeholders include the customer, the user group, the project manager, the development team, the testers, the media, etc. They all have an interest or claim (whether stated or implied) which has the potential of being impacted by or having an impact on a given project and its objectives.

Stakeholders consider themselves as having a stake in how a particular company performs and behaves. The traditional stakeholder has been defined by the business community and has typically been limited to the shareholder, financial institutions, and consumers. But increasingly more individuals and groups are considering themselves to be stakeholders in companies, and increasingly more groups outside the business world (e.g. universities) are beginning to work within the same concept as the corporate sector.

Examples of possible stakeholders in CAM research

  • Fellow employees in the project
  • Partners in the research project (physicians, CAM-practitioners, etc)
  • Patients / experimental subjects and their family
  • Other CAM researchers in the country
  • CAM researchers in other countries
  • The mainstream scientific community (e.g. university)
  • Students and teachers at the universities
  • Employees in the public health service (nurses, physicians)
  • Various professional bodies (unions, scientific societies, etc.)
  • Various popular CAM-organisations
  • International scientific CAM-organisations (ISCMR, etc)
  • Politicians on different levels
  • Government officials
  • Committed citizens
  • Associatios of patients
  • If existing: A national centre for CAM research and information
  • The news media (public)
  • The conventional scientific media
  • The CAM-oriented scientific media
  • The CAM-specific popular media

Possible elements and examples of international CAM-communication
(communication skills and ressources desirable)

  • Building and maintaining the international network
  • Gathering and formulating info about research, initiatives and policy in your own country
  • Distribution of this info via email and web
  • Preparing common initiatives with other countries
  • Arranging and promoting international meetings and conferences
  • Communication during international meetings and conferences
  • Formulating basic material for international PR
  • Maintaining a good image among the different stakeholders
  • Writing articles and pressreleases for the media
  • Articles (non-scientific) for international newsletters, e.g. ISCMR
  • Coordinating international PR/lobbyism
  • Lobby-meetings with stakeholders
  • Getting funding for all this!

Typical communication pitfalls in research communication

  • Chaotic, incomplete or incorrect address lists
  • Lack of consciousness concerning the roles of stakeholders.
  • When you need to get in touch with someone, the address list is outdated.
  • Vital news stay top secret, because the communication channels are very blurred – or no one thinks of spreading the word.
  • Published information is insufficient and does not have a target group
  • Emails keep bouncing, and nobody knows how to reach this person.
  • You possess limited knowledge about a country, where you may find interesting colleagues and data.
  • The researcher with all the international connections does not work here anymore.
  • You never heard of the conference, because it was announced on a different mailing list…
  • The website says: last updated June 2002

Who is in charge of this?
Jesper Madsen, independent communication consultant, working in the Danish CAM-research community since 1997, being a member of the ISCMR.

  • educated at The Danish School of Journalism and The University of Copenhagen
  • involved in the building of The Knowledge and Research Center for Alternative Medicine (www.vifab.dk), a non-profit, independent institution endorsed and organized under the Danish Ministry of Health.
  • networker, lecturer, webmaster, journalist in the CAM-field
  • communication consultant on a number of CAM-projects
  • author of the book “CAM – medical practice in transformation”, 2001. (In Danish).
  • editor and webmaster of this website.

My professional focus is CAM: research, bridge-building, science and health politics. For this reason I created the English part of Galilei.dk, which as part of this project will be replaced by a professional, all-in-English website.

Download CAMCOMM poster, presented at the International Congress on Complementary Medicine Research, May 2007 here.