Increase your visibility

12 ways to increase visibility

• 1) Publish high-quality work

  The strongest reason your research should gain attention and visibility is its high quality. It can be tempting to prioritize quantity in hopes of gaining recognition through a long publication list. But it's far better to be famous for your innovative, insightful work that meets rigorous scientific standards than to be infamous for flawed methods or unsubstantiated conclusions.

   

• 2) Conferences

  Academic events such as conferences, workshops, and summer schools remain key venues for sharing research and expanding your professional network.

  Giving a talk or presenting a poster helps make your work — and your role as a researcher — more visible within your community. These presentations not only increase the chances of being cited but can also lead to valuable feedback, collaborations and long-term recognition.

  If you need training in presenting your work, check the courses offered on lead campus. They offer several courses on presentation techniques that are targeted at early career researchers (and more experienced ones as well).

• 3) Open Access and CC BY

  There are many good reasons to publish your research output Open Access. Increasing your visibility, and that of your research work, is one of them. Studies have shown that Open Access publications are cited more often than non-Open Access articles (for example, Gargouri et al., PLOS ONE, 2010).

  To make it clear how others can use your work while giving you attribution, we recommend publishing your Open Access manuscript with an open licence such as CC BY. This transparency encourages wider sharing and reuse, helping your work reach a broader audience and increasing its impact. More restrictive licences, such as CC BY NC ND, can have many unintended consequences and might not achieve what you originally intended and reduce the visibility your research work could have gained. 

• 4) DOI

  To help readers find your research output, publish with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). A DOI provides a persistent, citable link to your research — whether it’s an article, dataset, preprint, poster, or software. DOIs help ensure that your work remains findable over time and can be accurately tracked in citation databases and metrics systems.

  Many repositories — such as Zenodo, Figshare, and institutional platforms — assign DOIs to non-traditional research outputs as well, extending visibility beyond journal articles. If you publish a work where one of the 4RIs is the publisher, Lib4RI can provide you with a DOI. Check our dedicated page to learn how.

• 5) Unique author identifiers

  ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a free, widely used digital identifier that ensures your research is reliably and uniquely linked to you (registration link). This unique link also means that your work is not misattributed to someone else with the same name and that it is still attributed to you in case you change your name.

  ORCID enables machine-readable connections between you and your research outputs — including articles, datasets, grants, and affiliations. It integrates with funders, repositories, publishers, and institutions to make your work more visible and easier to track. 

  You can import publications from other databases, update your professional history, and control how your information is shared. Many journals and platforms also allow you to log in using your ORCID.

  In addition to ORCID, several other platforms assign unique author IDs that link you to your publications and academic record. Keeping these profiles accurate helps ensure your work is properly attributed and more easily discovered.

  These systems are also used in bibliometric analyses and institutional assessments — so maintaining accurate and complete profiles ensures you are represented correctly.

  Here are the most common platforms to check:

  • Google Scholar – Offers a public-facing profile and tracks citations. You can manually add or correct entries.
  • Scopus author identifier – Automatically created based on Scopus-indexed publications; can be merged or corrected via Elsevier’s Author Feedback Wizard.
  • Web of Science Researcher ID – Connects with Publons and ORCID; useful for citation metrics and peer review tracking.

• 6) Correct affiliations

  When submitting publications, uploading datasets, or creating author profiles, always use the official name of your research institution. This ensures that your work is properly attributed and counted in institutional bibliometrics and search results.

  Using non-standard, shortened, or translated versions can cause your publications to be misclassified or fragmented across databases.

  The official institutional names are (as registered at the Research Organization Registry):

  • "Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology" for Eawag

  • "Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology" for Empa

  • "Paul Scherrer Institute" for PSI 

  • "Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research" for WSL

  You can include the short name (e.g. Eawag) in parentheses, but the full name should always come first.

  Consistently using the correct affiliation also improves the accuracy of author disambiguation in large databases like Scopus, Web of Science, and Dimensions.

• 7) Publish preprints

  Posting a preprint is a great way to increase your visibility. Preprints allow you to make your work discoverable sooner and can lead to earlier citations and broader engagement (Colavizza et al., PLOS ONE, 2024).

  Sharing a preprint on social media or in academic circles can also invite informal feedback, helping you improve the manuscript before journal submission.

  We have a dedicated page covering all the key advantages of preprints, including where and how to post them: Learn more about preprints

• 8) Academic search engine optimization

  We all use search engines to find research articles — and like most users, we rarely look beyond the first page of results. Why do some articles appear at the top, while others are buried pages deep? This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in.

  SEO for you as a researcher means presenting your work in a way that makes it easier for search engines (like Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, or institutional repositories) to find and rank it. Here are a few steps you can take:

  • Use clear, specific titles: Choose descriptive titles that reflect the core topic and include important keywords. Avoid overly technical phrasing or puns — clarity helps discoverability.
  • Craft a strong abstract: The abstract is often indexed directly by search engines. Use natural language with relevant terms that someone in your field would use when searching for a topic like yours.
  • Include keywords strategically: Many repositories and journals allow you to add keywords. Think like a (re)searcher: what words or phrases would you use to find your own article?
  • Link your work: Check that we registered your article on our institutional repository DORA, list the DORA entry of your article on your personal websites and link to it from your profiles (ORCID, ResearchGate, personal website). Backlinks improve SEO.
  • Use persistent identifiers: DOI links, ORCID and dataset handles help systems associate content with you reliably.

  SEO isn't about gaming the system — it’s about making sure your high-quality work gets the attention it deserves.

• 9) Use your websites

  Take full advantage of the personal website or profile page offered by your research institute. This is often one of the first places others will look when searching for your name.

  In addition, consider creating your own private website using a platform like GitHub Pages or Codeberg Pages. Unlike institutional sites, these remain under your control even if you move to another organisation.

  Your personal website(s) are great tools to introduce yourself, highlight your research interests, showcase current projects, and establish a consistent professional "brand." Just as importantly, they should feature your publications and other research outputs — ideally with links to datasets, software, presentations, or full-text versions where possible.

  Creating meaningful links between your website(s) and the platforms that host your research outputs helps improve search engine visibility, as covered in the SEO tip above.

  See our guides on presenting your DORA-listed research work on your personal institutional website (see directly here for Eawag, Empa, PSI or WSL).

• 10) Use social media

  Social media can be a powerful way to increase the visibility of your research — not only among fellow scientists, but also among interested members of the public. In doing so, you also build a network of people who are genuinely interested in your work.

  Different platforms vary in their tone, audience, and preferred content formats — from text-based posts to visuals and videos. Not every platform will be the right fit for your style or goals, so it’s worth exploring where you feel most comfortable.

  For a practical and engaging introduction, see Kate Bredbenner’s presentation “Communicating your research using social media”.

• 11) Talk to the communication department

  The communication departments at the four research institutes (Eawag, Empa, PSI and WSL) can support you in translating your research into accessible summaries for the general public.

  These teams can promote your work via institutional websites and social media, significantly increasing its visibility. To make the most of this opportunity, contact your communication department as soon as your article is accepted — this allows time to coordinate press releases or blog posts with the official publication date.

• 12) Advertise your non-article research output

  While peer-reviewed journal publications remain central to scientific communication, many researchers produce a wide range of valuable outputs throughout their careers — including datasets, software, code, protocols, conference posters, blog posts, videos, policy briefs, or outreach materials.

  These contributions can be highly relevant to other scientists and the wider public, yet are often under-recognised. Make sure to showcase them! As mentioned in tip 3), you can receive a DOI for these research outputs as well and improve their discoverability and visibility. Narrative CVs (such as those supported by the SNSF) are an effective way to include and describe non-traditional research outputs. 

  Finally, your personal website is the ideal place to feature these achievements — along with links to where they can be accessed, cited, or reused.