Mihaela Gruia set up Yorkshire-based Research Retold in 2017 which provides research support services as communication and design to help businesses present their findings in easy-to-read and creative ways. Here she talks about the early stages of starting up her own business and how the Y-Accelerator programme gave her ‘an incredible boost of confidence’ as a solo founder.
Tell us all about your business and what inspired you to start up Research Retold?
By bringing together world-leading academics, research communicators and graphic designers, Research Retold offers a unique service that distills the key findings of complex research and communicates them in visual and digestible formats for stakeholders.
In a world where there is greater need for accurate and more reliable evidence-based information, I am proud that the work we deliver within Research Retold has tremendous positive implications for society. For example, the visual summaries that we produced have been presented at high-profile policy meetings and industry conferences, helping to develop policy in the realm of UK mental health, global health financing in nine African countries, international assistance mechanisms employed by the United Nations, labour standards in European Union trade agreements, and developing new technology that harnesses the beneficial effects of music on insomnia.
Research Retold is pioneering a new way in which academic research is being communicated. By relating important messages in easy to understand and appealing documents, Research Retold further enables academic researchers to have a positive impact in society and to impart important knowledge to a wider audience. Given recent phenomena of ‘fake news’ and under-informed policymaking, our work is both timely and necessary.
How has winning the Y-Accelerator 2017/18 programme helped your business?
Winning the Y-Accelerator was an incredible boost of confidence for me as a solo founder, while having the discussions with UK Steel Enterprise about the potential investment was a great learning curve for me. Since the programme, I have further developed the learning and ideas from the sessions and committed myself fully to building the business. We have just celebrated our one year in business and it was a great moment to reflect on our achievements and express our gratitude towards those who have helped us on our journey. There are people who I met during the Y-Accelerator that are still close collaborators of ours which I think is great.
What are your hopes and aims for your business?
To mark our one-year anniversary, we launched our first publication, the “Guide to Communicating Research Beyond Academia”. My aim is to share this 32 step-by-step guide with researchers and evaluators who want to create a visual summary of their findings, as well as further strengthen our collaborations and work with more amazing researchers. I am also looking to grow our network of associates who communicate and design the research findings. My hope is that Research Retold continues to be the place where exciting ideas are brought to life in a reliable, collaborative and transparent way!
