In April 2016, EMBL’s Director-General, Iain Mattaj, announced a restructuring of the organisation’s communications functions. Separate units that were previously quite independent – namely the Office of Information and Public Affairs (OIPA), Strategy and Analysis and the External Relations team at EMBL-EBI –  would be brought together into a single team called Strategy and Communications. The tasks this new team was set were:

1. be more proactive in communicating on EMBL’s behalf;
2. engage more effectively with stakeholders;
3. coordinate EMBL’s communications to ensure that our voice and messaging are consistent.

The ambition we were set was to raise EMBL’s profile: to ensure that people across the world had heard of this unique organisation and the amazing science that is led from here.

Since Iain’s announcement, an awful lot of work has gone on behind the scenes. We want to share that work with you and open a dialogue on the development EMBL’s communications. That is why we have opened this blog.

I think that we need to be open with what we are doing not merely to trumpet how great we are (there are no doubt many things that we will get wrong as we go forwards and I want to be open about mistakes too), but because I firmly believe that we can only deliver great communications for EMBL by being open about how we are approaching our work and involving everyone (yes, everyone!) in it. We need to collect the best ideas, and we need feedback – especially when it’s critical. I hope you will occasionally take the time to give this precious feedback to us, whether in person, by email, social channels or by leaving a comment on this blog.