In the media

| Communications

Telling our stories through the media

In 2020, we issued a series of eighteen press releases to academic and scientific media outlets, announcing research developments and events in our calendar of national leadership programme.

Our stories have been regularly picked up by popular technical publications such as The Engineer, Optics.com, Photonics and Optics News, Photonics.com, Laser Focus World and Physics.org.

Raising our profile through our internationally renowned research team

Hub Co-Investigators have continued to receive recognition for their outstanding contributions to photonics research and industry innovation.

In December 2020, Professor Nikolay Zheludev was part of the team who received the highest honour bestowed upon research scientists and engineers in Singapore. The team were honoured for their global leadership in, and fundamental contributions to, topological nanophotonics research which underpins the development of a new generation of light-based technologies.

Professor Zheludev was also amongst an elite group recognised for exceptional research influence, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field in the Web of Science™.

In October 2020, Professor Graham Reed received dual honours over the course of just eight days by being elected as a Fellow of both the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the European Optical Society (EOS) at each of the prestigious society’s annual general assemblies.

Galvanising the community online

Digital media channels were more important than ever in 2020. We maintained a regular drum beat of commentary and debate, bringing the community together on topics such as the Security and Investment Bill consultation through parliament, the Southampton cleanrooms re-opening in May for experimental work to continue safely and the report on Future Horizons for Photonics Research.

We sent a regular electronic newsletter to our subscribers throughout the year, keeping them informed of the latest news, events, funding opportunities and National Leadership features. The publication’s open and click-through rates continued to exceed the manufacturing sector benchmarks for email communications by more than 100%, with average open rates of 41% and average click-through rates of more than 14%. The @PhotonicsHub Twitter account continued to actively engage a growing audience.

Amplifying messages by leveraging a network of advocates

In 2020 we leveraged our active community of advocates to amplify messaging. We had particular success on Twitter with regular quoted retweets from influential partners and publishers such @FemTech, @WomenInOptics, @IOPDiversity on stories delivering on ED&I.

Other advocates have proactively amplified our content by re-publishing on their own channels, such as Photonics Scotland with, ‘Championing Diversity in the workplace: Interview with Dr Kirsty Annand’.