Digital Research Communication Practices in the Romanian Academic Context: From Traditionalism to Modernism

The development of digital technologies in the academic area in recent decades has led to a considerable number of publications in specialized literature (Demaizière & Grosbois, 2014; Barzman, Gerphagnon & Mora, 2020). From tools and instruments to different practices and activities of researchers, digital technology has made a major contribution to improving science dissemination in various scientific research communities around the world. This comprehensive view will serve as the background for our analysis. In this paper, which pertains to the field of digital communication, we examine the practices of digital dissemination of research in the Romanian academic context through the Erasmus + DILAN project ("Digital Language and Communication Resources for EU Scientists"). Ovidius University from Constanta is a partner in the DILAN project along with other universities or university consortia from Europe: Campus Iberus (Spain), Université de Bordeaux, Université Clermont Auvergne (France), Metropolitan University of Oslo - OsloMet (Norway), Academy of Economic Studies from Bucharest (Romania ), Ibercivis Foundation - national and international leader in promoting science in society and Kampal Data Solutions - experts in complex data networks and artificial intelligence. This project, which brings together researchers from interdisciplinary fields such as microbiology, computer science, data science, applied linguistics, discourse analysis and specialists in specialized languages and educational technologies, is dedicated to the creation of digital resources and cross-skills training to improve communication in the field of science. Thus, the aim of this project is to provide training to EU scientists in order to develop their skills in digital dissemination of research results to a wider audience. Based on a spoken corpus of 10 structured interviews, amounting to 450 minutes and conducted with STEM and non-STEM scientists within Ovidius University of Constanta, this article aims to identify, classify and analyze the practices for disseminating research findings. Drawing upon scientific and research-driven insights of Pérez-Llantada and José Luzón's (2019, 2022) works on digital genres in the production and communication of academic knowledge, we aim to investigatehow scientific knowledge is communicated to different categories of the public. To this end, special attention will be paid not only to the typical genres used in research communication, but also to the use of such emerging digital forms of communication as video summaries, graphic summaries, podcasts, videocasts, infographic posters used to communicate research findings. In our analytical approach, we will posit a new perspective on the subject that answers the following questions: Are the research results communicated in other forms than scientific research articles? Why were research articles and abstracts cited as the most important forms of communication, according to a recent survey of digital communication practices in the EU? How are the publications of the interviewed researchers distributed? For example, through open access databases, an institutional web page, a research blog, research sharing platforms (ResearchGate, Google Scholar), social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)? What is the research dissemination policy of the affiliated institution of the interviewed researchers? Is dissemination through newer digital forms encouraged, such as videos, podcasts, etc. or are more traditional dissemination practices expected, such as institutional web pages, open access databases, research sharing platforms, etc.? The analysis of our corpus of spoken data will allow us to draw a more nuanced picture of thepractices for digital research dissemination in the Romanian academic context. Last but not least, our analysis will enable us to identify the possible learning and training needs related to the challenges that digital communication entails.