Summary

This resource explains why visibility is important to your work as a researcher and simple ways to increase your visibility online. Creating a strong online presence is essential for researchers to boost credibility, visibility, and reputation.¹

Why visibility might be relevant for a researcher

A strong online presence can be an important tool for building a network. It has the potential  to increase your credibility, visibility, and enhance your reputation as a knowledgeable researcher in an international setting. 

• Credibility: You are who you say you are. A reliable digital footprint, highlighting your legitimacy as a researcher, may be important for research funding organizations in their selection process. Prior to granting funds, funding organizations may search online for the applicant to confirm the authenticity of the details provided by the applicant. Particularly for lesser known researchers, an online profile can be a supportive tool to reassure external reviewers of your credibility. 
• Visibility: In a growing digital world, an online presence has become more and more important. A strong online presence allows you to showcase your work and be visible to a broader audience. Curating an online presence with all your work in an easily accessible format can increase the likelihood that it will be read. 
• Reputation building: A strong online presence can be a good signal to those who are looking to connect with you. There may be interesting co-authors who are interested in collaborating with you (and vice versa); being more visible online may encourage potential co-authors to connect.

Building an academic website

A department biography page on a university website can be sparse on details, difficult to maintain, and can quickly become outdated—if this service is even offered by your university. 

A personal academic website that you create and maintain yourself, on the other hand, lets you share more about yourself, your research interests, and your active and completed projects. Personal sites are also easier to update regularly and stay with you across job transitions if moving between institutions.

Many researchers use Google sites, which is free and easy to use. Other free options include Wordpress and Weebly. 
Free options will have the name of the service in the url—e.g., a Google site might have the url “sites.google.com/site/janesmith.” It is completely normal and accepted for researchers to have websites with the host name in the url, as long as the url includes something intuitive and professional (like your first and last name). A simple and professional url can help to raise your online presence by ensuring accurate search results on search engines like Google. If you’d like a custom domain name (e.g., jane-smith.com), you can register one for a fee with sites like domains.google.com, godaddy.com or register.com.

Personal academic sites are usually as follows:

• Homepage: The contents should include:
  • Your name and contact information (university email and address). Make sure your contact details are correct and that you monitor the email address listed 
  • A professional looking headshot
  • A brief bio including your academic affiliation and position as well as a short research statement or featured work
  • Links to your university page, Google Scholar page (more below), or other websites you use in a professional capacity
• Research: Include separate sections for published papers, books/book chapters, working papers, and works in progress. Within each section, papers can be ordered reverse chronologically (most recent at the top) or reverse chronologically by topic area. You can also add brief blurbs or abstracts for papers if you’d like, as well as adding links to published or working papers. (When linking to published papers, be sure to use the stable DOI link.)
• CV: your CV can be added as a PDF or you can embed a link to a Dropbox or Google Drive file of a PDFed CV. It’s important to keep this version of your CV updated - it’s where the general public is most likely to find you. See more below.
• Other optional sections:
  • Research statement/about: A description of your research interests
  • Fieldwork: List and description of active and past projects
  • Teaching: If applicable
  • Data and code: If you have any publicly available, e.g., on Github or elsewhere. These materials can also be embedded when listing your projects.

The design of your website should be simple, professional, and easy to read. Don’t use a patterned background, bright/unusual colors, or fonts you would feel uncomfortable using in formal writing. Use dark text on a light background, which is much easier to read than the reverse. Remember to proofread your content. See more tips from Elsevier. 

A few examples running the gamut in terms of complexity are below. For each site, note the overall layout of each page, the tabs used (CV, research, etc.), the content of each tab, and the domain name.

• Francis Annan
• Lauren Falcao Bergquist 
• Alex Eble
• Anant Nyshadham

Writing (and maintaining) a CV

Your CV may be the first thing people visiting your website look at. It should provide a concise, comprehensive, and well-organized view into your background and work. 

Beyond posting it publicly on your website, you’ll likely have to include a CV when applying for grants, fellowships, or other positions. Keeping yours updated means you can send it off quickly without having to make major updates. 

To do this, it’s best to have a master version of your CV that lists everything you’ve done and shorter, tailored versions for specific positions or grant proposals. Only share a PDF version so that others can’t easily edit it. Using a Latex template can save you a lot of time in formatting the CV properly; see some examples linked below.

Academic CVs are longer than a resume and should include everything relevant to the position, grant, or other activity for which you are applying—there is no page limit. Visually, they should look professional and clean and be easy to read. Keep the text in black and in a standard, professional font, and don’t include photos. 

The sections listed below are typical of academic CVs; include whichever sections are relevant and in whatever order you prefer. Typically, items within sections are ordered reverse chronologically, i.e., the most recent item goes first. Common sections are:

• Name and contact information (always at the top). At a minimum, include a link to your website and your email address. You can also include your work mailing address and phone number.
• Education: Degrees, universities, dates
• Publications: Include the full citation, with the journal information, and a DOI if available. 
• Working papers: Include the titles and co-authors and a link to the paper if available.
• Works in progress: Include the titles and co-authors. This can be combined with the above or kept as a separate section if you have a number of early-stage papers that are far from a finished draft.
• Grants: List the project title/topic, the funder, your role, any co-investigators, the amount, and the dates of the award.
• Presentations: If you have a very long list, you don’t need to include details here. For example, you could write: 2019: NEUDC, PacDev, ASSA, Michigan, Berkeley, Stanford, MIT. Some people split presentations further (e.g., invited seminars vs conferences) depending on what they want to emphasize.
• Teaching: List the course, the school, and the dates. Some people list teaching evaluations (e.g., 4.5/5) for each course. Graduate students can also list teaching assistant (TA) experience, just be sure to indicate for which courses you were the instructor vs. the TA.
• Awards/fellowships: List name of the award/fellowship, awarding institution (if not evident in the name of the award), and dates (years only).
• Referee service: List the journals for which you’ve served as a referee (no dates or frequencies needed). This list is usually alphabetical.
• Service: e.g., Service at your university or professional association, such as serving on a committee.

A couple of example CVs and advice for CV writing include:

• Sample CVs from MIT and Harvard. 
• See also the CVs of J-PAL affiliates, including Meredith Fowlie, Arya Gaduh, Koichiro Ito, and Yusuf Neggers
• CV writing advice from MIT, Cornell, and Elsevier

Latex templates:

• Overleaf and the site Latex Templates have a number of options. Some good ones include:
  • Medium length professional CV
  • Long professional CV
  • Medium length graduate CV

Creating a Google Scholar profile

Google Scholar pulls in and lists your publications and citations in one place, and is a low-cost way to increase your visibility. It should complement, not replace, a personal academic website, as it only lists publications. 

You can set up your Google Scholar profile so that updates are done automatically or only with your review. Whichever route you choose, it is useful to periodically review your Scholar profile, as Google sometimes misattributes papers or categorizes publications that you may not want listed yet (e.g., very early drafts posted on conference websites). You can also sign up for alerts whenever one of your works is cited, which can be a useful way to see how your work is being referenced.

See Isaac Mbiti's and Tavneet Suri's pages for two examples, and this page on Google Scholar Profiles for more instructions on getting started.

Using social media

X (formerly known as Twitter)—specifically the hashtag #EconTwitter—has become a hub for economists to publicly share announcements including new papers, job openings for research associates (RAs), relocations, etc. In 2024, Bluesky has become an increasingly popular alternative to X for academic researchers, with many economists using the hashtag #EconSky. You can follow prominent development economists, including many J-PAL affiliates on Bluseky using Development Economics Starter Packs (1 and 2). The discussion is often lively and informative. It can feel uncomfortable to self-promote, but creating an X or Bluesky profile, following other economists, posting about your professional achievements (using the #EconTwitter or #EconSky hashtag!), and engaging in discussions/responding to other economists’ posts are other low-cost ways to increase your visibility. 

Learn more about #EconTwitter here and more about #EconSky here. 

Sharing your research code and data (where appropriate)

Sharing de-identified data can increase the reach of your research. Doing so allows others to reuse your data to answer new questions, combine it with other data to draw out insights across studies (as in a meta-analysis or methods research), or to conduct replications of your analysis. 
Beyond benefiting researchers and students who can learn from the data and code, original research data is a citable resource that can be linked to other study materials, including the paper and trial registration. This in turn can benefit you by raising your visibility and enhancing the credibility of your research. Note that data should only be shared if research participants cannot be re-identified and, if not solely owned by the research team, with permission from data owners (such as a data provider).
J-PAL offers free data publication services on any project funded by J-PAL. We also have two two step-by-step guides on 1) removing information that could be used to re-identify research subjects (a must-do before publishing research data), and 2) preparing data for publication, including suggested locations for storing data.

Takeaways

Building your online presence can help other researchers—and influential gatekeepers like conference planners and managers of professional networks—understand your research interests and seek you out for collaboration, and can greatly increase the accessibility of your research and publications. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, a good first step is to create a simple personal academic website, CV, and Google Scholar profile; the rest is still useful but less critical in enhancing your visibility as a researcher.

Summary

This resource discusses the benefits of international co-authorship and offers suggestions for researchers interested in pursuing such collaborations, drawing on the experiences of J-PAL affiliated researchers and research staff.¹

Benefits of collaborating with international colleagues

International research collaborations—those composed of principal investigator (PI) teams based in different countries—are increasingly common and have the potential to strengthen the capacity of research teams and the quality of research projects. As with any research collaboration, successful international collaborations require planning and coordination. 

Research collaborations often begin organically through researchers’ existing networks. For example, PhD students may co-author with their advisors, with other students in their department, or with graduate students or professors they meet at conferences. Breaking out of one’s familiar social and professional circles to find co-authors from different backgrounds, disciplines, and countries can create opportunities for more innovative research informed by each co-author’s unique experiences, perspectives, and expertise.

Researchers from or based in the study location (for shorthand, “local” researchers) are likely more familiar with the existing knowledge and policy priorities in the study location. Therefore, studies that include local researchers on the PI team can generate evidence that is more engaged with the local context, in addition to promoting knowledge transfer around research techniques.

Here are a few examples demonstrating how international collaboration among colleagues has led to successful research partnerships:

Benefits of international co-authorship

Researchers from and/or based in the study location or context can make valuable contributions to all aspects of the research process, including research design, implementation, analysis, writing, and dissemination. International researchers (i.e., those neither from nor based in the study location) can bring transferable experience from running research projects in other settings as well as complementary skills and training. In this section, we highlight some of the ways in which local researchers can be especially well-positioned to add value to projects. These are just some examples though, as researchers across all backgrounds and locations have valuable and unique knowledge, experiences, and skills that will shape the ways in which they can best contribute to a research team.

During the inception stage, local researchers can help contextualize intervention ideas to form policy-relevant studies. Their understanding of the local context and needs faced by the population can lead to more creative, relevant, and feasible ideas for new research questions, intervention designs, and approaches to outcome measurement, while international researchers may bring sectoral expertise and experience with randomized evaluations. Furthermore, governments are often concerned with the generalizability or adaptability of research ideas formulated in a different context. Local researchers’ familiarity with the government’s challenges, such as timeline, logistical, and political constraints, can increase the likelihood that research findings will be useful for policy making. 

When studies begin to take place, local researchers can more effectively communicate with local partners, especially if foreign co-authors do not speak the local language. With a better understanding of local culture, they can better engage in difficult conversations, like resolving challenges during a study’s implementation, leading to more effective communication and successful projects. 

When research is complete, local researchers can play a key role in supporting efforts to promote research findings in policymaking by providing suggestions to contextualize research findings to offer policy-relevant recommendations. This can be complemented by international researchers’ contributions to research paper writing and dissemination through seminars, conferences, and journals, thereby helping other researchers find and build on the work. Through these and other pathways, collaborations between local and international researchers can greatly enrich the research.

Setting expectations

In co-authored research studies—regardless of the makeup of the PI team—each author often plays different roles in the research design, analysis, and writing. For example, one co-author might be an expert in the methodology being used in the paper while another may be an expert in the theoretical literature relevant to the study. In this case, the former might develop the study’s empirical strategy and conduct the statistical analysis while the latter conducts the literature review and develops the theory for the paper. In some cases, seniority may influence co-authorship expectations. For example, a more senior researcher might expect to provide access to grant funding and offer high-level advice but spend less time managing the implementation of the research study, conducting the analysis, or writing up the results. 

To ensure smooth and successful collaboration, it is best to set clear expectations about the role and contributions of each co-author prior to beginning any collaboration. Some specific areas to consider setting expectations include:

• Who will be included as co-authors? It is helpful to discuss co-authorship among the research team at the start of a collaboration to make sure everyone is on the same page. In the social sciences, decisions about co-authorship are not always clear cut, and each researcher may have different preferences and expectations. For example, if a research assistant or research manager completes a significant portion of the analysis and writing for the paper, will they be credited as a co-author? How about partners who facilitate access to administrative data and secure collaborations with relevant agencies necessary for study implementation but do not take part in the analysis and writing? What about someone who helped come up with the initial research idea but was no longer involved in the project once it began? Some researchers have recently begun advocating for broader co-authorship inclusion criteria to share credit with more junior research staff who made significant and substantive contributions to the research. Several J-PAL affiliated professors, including Marcella Alsan, Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Arun Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Ben Olken; Joe Doyle and Amy Finkelstein; and Gautam Rao and Frank Schilbach have co-authored with research associates or research managers.
• Author ordering: Research teams also have discretion in determining author order when submitting a paper to a journal. The general norm in economics is for alphabetical order. However, some economists determine author order based on the significance of each author’s contribution to the work (and this can be even more common in other social science disciplines such as political science). In other cases, research teams decide to randomize author order. Discussing author order at the start of a project can help prevent conflict or disappointment when it is time to submit a journal.
• Overall breakdown of responsibilities, including how much each author will be expected to contribute to project management, data analysis, and writing: It can be helpful to delegate specific responsibilities to each co-author in advance. For example, one co-author may take responsibility for overseeing grants, IRB approvals, and research protocols, while another may be designated as the point person to liaise with the field implementation team. In addition, it is helpful to determine how the research team will communicate with one another (e.g., email, Slack, WhatsApp, etc.), how frequently the research team will meet, and which phases of the research will require the most time from each co-author. When delegating responsibilities, it is also helpful to set expectations in advance around which types of issues each co-author can decide unilaterally and which types of issues require input from all co-authors. Our resource for researchers new to randomized evaluations has additional guidance on project and team management that can be helpful to discuss amongst the PI team.
• Study timeline and publication goals: Some research studies last a matter of months, while others take many years to complete and publish. Though the time to completion will depend on the scale and complexity of the intervention and data collection, research projects involving field experiments typically take longer to complete than those leveraging existing data to evaluate an intervention after it has taken place. Once a working paper is drafted, time to publication can also vary widely depending on the type of target journal. If targeting a top-tier journal, it may take several years until an article is published, following lengthy peer review processes. Tradeoffs between publication timelines and journal tier can differ for different types of researchers. For example, a tenured professor may be under less pressure to publish quickly, while a PhD student, postdoc, or assistant professor may want to complete a project and publish the paper more quickly to improve their chances of getting hired or tenured. Publication incentives can also vary substantially by country and department. At many economics departments in the United States, the prestige of the journal one publishes in may be relatively more important than the quantity of publications. For example, a paper published in the American Economic Review may count equivalently to multiple publications in lesser ranked journals, and publications in certain journals may not count at all towards a professor’s tenure or promotion case. At other universities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, or in other fields, all publications in Scopus-indexed journals may count equally. Therefore, professors in these institutions may have more of an incentive to publish more papers more quickly, as opposed to taking on relatively fewer projects but pursuing studies that involve larger-scale original data collection, which can be more time-consuming, expensive, and unpredictable. 
• Available resources and teaching loads: In many countries, non-contingent faculty members (equivalent to tenure track in the United States) may have high teaching load and no possibility of course buy-outs, resulting in less time to devote towards research projects and paper writing. For example, faculty members in public universities in Indonesia can be required to teach four courses or more per semester—comparable to teaching loads at liberal arts colleges in the United States. The number of courses faculty members are required to teach increases when the department offers all levels of study (undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees) or if the department offers courses that are part of the core curriculum of all students (including those outside of the department). Researchers based in low- and middle-income countries may also have less access to research funding and discretionary research funds that can be used to hire highly skilled research assistants.

Insights from J-PAL Southeast Asia

A key priority of J-PAL Southeast Asia (SEA) is to identify potential Indonesian co-authors to match with J-PAL affiliated professors. In doing so, the team seeks recommendations from J-PAL SEA’s affiliates and scientific directors, host university (University of Indonesia), government partners, and post-doctoral fellows, as well as from discussions with key stakeholders, such as NGOs and donor organizations. J-PAL SEA seeks out local researchers with a background in economics and public policy and demonstrated interest in conducting experimental research. This includes early career academics who may have less experience but have strong potential and motivation to lead randomized evaluations and build relationships with government partners. The team also seeks to address regional disparities in exposure to international collaboration opportunities in Indonesia. In an effort to expand its network of local researchers, J-PAL SEA has, for example, conducted training for academics and students from outside Java, namely in Universitas Syiah Kuala in the far west of Indonesia and Universitas Hasanuddin in Eastern Indonesia.

Once the team has identified a list of potential researchers, the next step is to conduct an initial assessment to better understand their expertise and area of interest as well as experience working with local partners. The team also shares the potential benefits of the collaboration, like opportunities to work with researchers from universities abroad, access J-PAL funding, receive dedicated support from the J-PAL SEA research team for project development and implementation, participate in J-PAL training courses and workshops, and potentially publish the research in highly ranked journals.
J-PAL SEA promotes a co-authorship model that emphasizes mentorship and mutual learning. To date, 41 Indonesian researchers have co-authored J-PAL research studies. Some of these researchers have also launched independent randomized evaluations while continuing their research collaborations with J-PAL affiliates, and several of these researchers have since become J-PAL invited researchers and affiliated professors. Collaborations with the Indonesian government, facilitated by Indonesian researchers, have led to more evidence- and data-driven policymaking to meet the needs of the country’s most marginalized people.  

J-PAL’s experience in Southeast Asia and beyond has demonstrated how co-authorships among researchers from different countries can foster more innovation and contextually-grounded research and strengthen the capacity of research teams. International research collaborations, especially those built on principles of mutual learning and equal partnership, will spur the generation of stronger evidence and more informed policymaking, enhancing our ability to tackle critical questions in the fight against poverty together.