About
Knowledge Communicators brings together three senior communications experts, each with years of experience supporting health and research communications in teaching hospitals, universities and research funding agencies. We are allied with Signals Design Group, one of Canada’s most highly respected branding and graphic design firms. Our collective services include communications planning and strategy, branding and marketing, media relations, knowledge translation and fund development communications. We also have several associates with specialized expertise in complementary areas of knowledge communication including grant writing, knowledge translation and social media.
While we are based in Vancouver, Knowledge Communicators has a national focus. We have proven experience working effectively with clients across the country.
What is our process?
One communicator acts as the lead consultant for each project, bringing in other associates as needed. This way, you always receive cost-effective, personalized service tailored to the changing needs or phases of your project. We work with clients on a short term, strategic basis, as well as in the longer term.
Why hire specialists?
The world of health research is a special environment with unique complexities. Your communications team needs to understand CIHR, CPAC, NCE, and other acronyms. They need to know the role of the PI, and what it means to be the last author on a paper. They must also be knowledgeable about research practice, including the importance of multidisciplinary approaches, research networks and knowledge exchange for accelerating research discovery and driving advancements to health and care.
Our years of experience working with researchers in health and academic settings means that Knowledge Communicators understands your issues — not only the purely scientific aspects of health and medicine, but also the academic, economic, social and political forces that affect the research enterprise. This gives us a distinct advantage in helping you define and achieve your communications goals.
When should you contact us?
Many of our clients budget for branding and communications in their grants and then call us in once their project is funded. But we also work with clients at the start of the grant writing process to help them make a clear and compelling case for research funding. We can help clients budget for communications, develop key messages to be used in the grant and help them prepare for face-to-face meetings and site visits.
In addition to grant-funded projects, health researchers also rely on communications for cohort studies and multi-centre clinical trials, conferences, new research institutes, health research networks and spin-off companies. In general, contacting us as early as possible — even before the project is funded — is desirable. We provide branding and communications workplans and budgets at no cost to researchers for grant writing and budgeting purposes.