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Over the past couple of years, I have begun writing more regularly for public audiences – primarily short op-eds based on my research on child development, trauma and youth well-being – to help inform current policy debates.
This shift was prompted in part by being part of a Scholars Strategy Network workshop for the William T. Grant Scholars program, which emphasizes the importance of bringing research into public policy conversations. That imperative is easy to endorse.
Developmental science has much to offer public understanding. The issues to which it speaks – youth mental health, family stress, education, child welfare – are central to policy decisions.
When researchers remain silent, public debates do not pause. Instead, they proceed with partial, simplified or sometimes misleading accounts. In that context, contributing to public discourse feels less like optional outreach and more like a professional responsibility.
But the pathway from research to public debate is not as straightforward as the growing push in academia to “get the evidence out there” would suggest.
In practice, research does not move directly from academic journal articles into policy decisions. It is filtered through a set of institutions and people – media, advocacy organizations, policy shops, political actors – that interpret, simplify and mobilize findings in different ways.
Op-eds and other forms of public scholarship are part of that process. They do not simply disseminate knowledge. They shape how it is understood and used.
Contemporary journalism operates under real economic strain
Newsrooms are smaller, outlets are more consolidated, columnists are fewer and many outlets rely increasingly on unpaid expert contributions. As academics, we are often well positioned to fill that space. Our salaries are paid elsewhere. Our institutions increasingly reward this kind of visibility. We can write without immediate financial necessity.
This creates a tension that is rarely acknowledged in calls for greater public engagement. At what point does contributing research-based perspectives begin to blur into substituting for paid (and trained) journalistic labour? How should scholars understand their role within a media ecosystem that is itself under pressure?
These questions do not argue against engagement. If anything, the current policy environment increases the need for careful, evidence-informed voices. But they do suggest that “get your work out there” is an incomplete guide. The challenge is not simply whether to engage, but how to calibrate that engagement within a broader system of knowledge production and use.
The Goldilocks problem
At one end, engagement is too cold. Research remains largely within academic channels. Findings circulate among scholars but have limited impact on public discourse or policy deliberation. Important insights are absent from debates where they could matter most or are left vulnerable to distortion.
At the other end, engagement risks becoming too hot. Scholars may become highly responsive to the rhythms of media production – writing frequently, commenting broadly and extending themselves beyond their areas of expertise. There is a risk here of trading depth for immediacy. The line between public scholarship and general commentary can become difficult to discern.
Between these poles lies a more balanced approach: engagement that is regular but not indiscriminate, responsive but still anchored in expertise, and attentive not only to what we say but to the context of the debate. This means being selective about which policy issues genuinely connect to your evidence and experience, as well as thinking deliberately about the outlets to which you’re lending credibility.
Public scholarship, in this sense, involves both dissemination and interpretation, recognizing that how research enters public debate shapes how it is ultimately used in policy and practice.
Universities must move past research and teaching, and do more to help society
This “just right” zone is not fixed. It will vary across fields, institutions and career stages. For early career scholars in particular, the calculus is complicated. Visibility is increasingly rewarded institutionally, but overreach carries real reputational risk. As well, the pressure to engage can outpace the depth of an established evidence base. Recognizing the problem is a useful starting point.
In a moment when both the demand for accessible research and the fragility of the institutions that carry it are increasing, the goal cannot simply be more engagement.
It must be engagement that is honest about what the current system asks of researchers – and whether, in saying yes too readily, we are solving a problem or quietly absorbing the costs that a more robust media ecosystem would otherwise sustain.
