Raising Your Profile: How to Be More Visible to Advance Your Research and Career

Among the various promotion and tenure (P&T) metrics commonly applied to research faculty, one of the more nebulous is “reputation”. Where papers and grants can be quantified with numerical targets, reputation is harder to define with numbers. The vague nature of this assessment criterion understandably poses challenges to faculty who wish to establish their reputation but aren’t sure what exactly that means. Mentors who are senior faculty and/or conversations with P&T committee members can help. Here, we cover some specific actions you can take to “raise your profile” and build or enhance your scholarly reputation.

Is doing good research enough?

P&T metrics meant to proxy for reputation classically relied on citation counts. Citation counts transitioned to impact factor in recent decades, as deciding bodies (not just P&T committees but funding panels, etc.) embraced the idea of journal/publication/author quality1,2. In this regard, reputation could be considered quantifiable as “doing good-quality research” that is published in high-quality journals. And those publications would lead to invitations to present at national and international conferences, thereby enhancing the visibility of work that might already have good visibility.

However, the digital era resulted in a rapid expansion in the number of peer-reviewed journals and the number of published articles3, along with shifting the way readers and authors interact with publications. As a result, building a reputation requires additional active efforts to increase visibility, beyond “doing good research”.

The benefits of raising your profile

The most common question we receive when talking with investigators about enhancing their visibility isn’t “how?” but “why?” In addition to speaking to your reputation as a scholar to help you surpass P&T expectations, raising your profile offers wider benefits. Making yourself and your work more visible (i.e., encountered by more people and more easily findable) can lead to:

Collaborative Opportunities: Engaging with a wider audience increases the likelihood of forming partnerships that can lead to joint grant applications, co-authored publications, and interdisciplinary projects. This expanding network provides you with a lot of interesting possibilities for scholarship and impact, and a more robust source of letter-writers when it is time for P&T portfolio review.
Career Advancement: Beyond receiving invitations to speak at conferences, your work’s visibility can yield invitations to serve on editorial boards, national or international committees, and review panels; provide opportunities to advise major governing bodies; and lead to job offers.
Research Impact: A visible PI can more effectively disseminate their findings, ensuring that their research reaches relevant stakeholders beyond their immediate field, influences policy, and contributes to societal advancements. Additionally, being more visible can connect you with private or public funders who have an interest in supporting your future work and innovations.

Strategies to Enhance Visibility

You’re probably already sensing that building or expanding your reputation requires more work. And for some, this kind of work will feel really low-priority (or no-priority) when you’ve already got a full plate. After all, some of this may happen organically. Organic visibility is good visibility but tends to be slow and difficult to anticipate. On the other hand, implementing a strategy gives you more control.

Below we provide some suggestions for actions you can take to increase your visibility. Please know that you don’t have to (and shouldn’t attempt to) do all of these things at once. You can make intentional progress by choosing one or two options that you’re currently not doing, identifying the next smallest step forward, and making time for yourself to do it.

Engage in Internal Activities:
- Interdepartmental Seminars: Presenting research in departments or clinical fields with overlapping interests can foster interdisciplinary collaborations and introduce your work to new audiences. If no one has asked you to present, reach out to someone you know (or someone who can introduce you to the right person) and ask if you can get on the presentation schedule.
- Guest Lectures: Offering to speak in informal group meetings or more formal seminars or grand rounds outside your immediate department can showcase your expertise to a broader academic audience. Choose carefully so that you don’t waste your or others’ time with a poor fit and make sure that your presentation meets the needs of your audience. Remember that people will connect to your enthusiasm for the work, and this doesn’t mean you have to have the perfect slide show—just a willingness to share an interesting story.
- Research Committees: Participating in institutional committees or working groups can increase your involvement in decision-making processes and raise your profile among colleagues.
Collaborate with Local Institutions:
- Regional Conferences and Workshops: Attending and presenting at local academic events can expand your network within the regional research community.
- Joint Research Initiatives: Partnering with nearby universities or research centers on projects can lead to shared resources and co-authored publications.
Leverage Digital Platforms:
- Professional Profiles: Maintaining updated profiles on platforms like ORCID and Google Scholar ensures that your work is easily discoverable.
- Social Media Engagement: Active participation on social media platforms allows you to share research updates, engage in scholarly discussions, and connect with a global audience. You might find that you reach different audiences on different platforms.
- Personal Website: Creating a professional website to showcase your research, publications, and achievements can serve as a centralized hub for your academic portfolio. Having a group/lab website also gives a place for funders, reviewers, community organizations, potential employees/ mentees/ collaborators, etc., to learn more about you, your team, and your work. Plus, a site that is not hosted by your employer is fully under your control, can be updated more frequently, and moves with you as needed.
- Check out more suggestions for digital visibility from the University of California’s Office of Scholarly Communication.
Participate in Community Outreach:
- Public Lectures: Speaking at formal and informal community events or public lectures can raise awareness of your research and its societal implications.
- Media Contributions: Writing articles for popular media or participating in interviews can disseminate your work to a broader, non-academic audience. Trying checking out Source of Sources or Connectively for notices from journalists and other pros seeking expert sources for their reporting.

Participating in annual conferences remains a valuable avenue for visibility, and it’s not the only avenue available today. PIs should actively seek additional opportunities to enhance their presence within and beyond their institutions. Engaging in interdepartmental activities, collaborating with local institutions, leveraging digital platforms, and participating in community outreach are effective strategies to broaden your network, disseminate research more widely, and advance your academic career. By proactively increasing visibility, you can open doors to new opportunities, collaborations, and successes in the evolving landscape of academic research.

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