Kudos, a service for accelerating research impact through strategic communications management, has announced the launch of Kudos Pro, a new toolkit for research groups, departments, faculties, and institutes. Kudos Pro enables researchers to create and manage research communication plans (targeting multiple audiences, within and outside of academia); to share information about their research, showcasing all their research outputs; and to track and report on reach and engagement, throughout the entire lifecycle of the project. It is designed to help researchers broaden engagement, optimize communications spend, reach target audiences more effectively, and maximize potential impact.
The development of Kudos Pro reflects an evolution in the research funding environment, with funders now strongly prioritizing broader dissemination, engagement, and impact. A recent global survey showed that 39% of researchers said their funder requires a dissemination plan as part of their grant application, 38% said their funder required them to reach a wide audience to broaden their impact, and 25% are required to engage stakeholders throughout the project. Despite this, very little practical support has been available to help researchers meet these requirements.
Kudos Pro’s pre-launch phase has been a success, with several teams already using the system to create public profiles for their projects, and building Kudos Pro into project workflows and grant applications. Development continues, with feature enhancements over the coming months including communications planning wizard, showcase services and additional audience targeting capabilities.