Within the Research Communities, posts are grouped into channels. Channels are a way to group the same type of content. For example, in the ‘Behind the Paper’ channel you will find blog posts discussing the behind-the-scenes from different research articles. Below you will find a summary of all available channels on the Communities.

Before publishing your blog post, please ensure that you have familiarised yourself with the Communities Guidelines and Terms and Conditions and that your post aligns with these guidelines.

Channels

Help & Support

A compilation of posts to help you navigate your way through the Communities. There you will find helpful tips and suggestions on creating impactful and engaging blog posts, answers to frequently asked questions about the platform, and more.

If you do have a query that was not answered in this channel, please do not hesitate to contact the team.  

Behind the Paper

‘Behind the Paper’ posts provide authors and researchers with the opportunity to share their findings and the stories behind their recently published papers. The posts give readers a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look into research, from the challenges and successes, to personal anecdotes and accounts from the team. We invite authors to share more about how their studies came to life, the impact of the research on the field and the future, as well as experiences of collaborating with peers and across disciplines. 

When writing a ‘Behind the Paper’ post, we recommend that you limit the use of scientific language and jargon. The Communities are openly accessible and are a space for researchers from all disciplines. Using simple terms, avoiding acronyms and clarifying difficult concepts helps all those who engage with your content understand your research and its impact. 

News & Opinion

The ‘News & Opinion’ channel provides a platform for authors to discuss developments in the field, current affairs, or explore new ideas.

Here, Community members have the opportunity to expand their reach and explore new avenues of their field, invite collaborators to explore new approaches, discuss the state of their field and more.

Whilst this channel welcomes and celebrates the sharing of opinions, we do ask that you include wider information and resources when sharing your opinions to help others understand and draw their own conclusions. Blog posts should be explorations of new ideas backed by research. If you are in doubt at any stage, please refer to the Community Guidelines.

From the Editors

As the title suggests, this channel contains content from journal Editors, publishing teams, and other Springer Nature staff. Content may range from calls for papers for collections, journal cover displays and announcements from the Editors, to interviews with authors and roundups of the latest research in our journals. 

Life in Research

This channel encourages contributors to share their stories and experiences, both in a laboratory or out in the field, from around the world. The format of posts herein may be slightly more conversational, and content may involve updates from scientific conferences, field work and other snapshots from your life as a researcher or academic with all of its ups and downs.

Events

In this channel, you are welcome to highlight an upcoming event of relevance to the research community.  The Communities seek to highlight events that are available and accessible to all Community members. If an event is not free, we ask that you include details of discounts, bursaries or other initiatives that support making it accessible to a wider audience.

Please note that promotional and marketing materials do not adhere to the Community Guidelines and posts of an overly promotional nature will be removed. To publish a post in this channel, please ensure that it follows the template outlined here.

Navigating channels on the Communities

If you are accessing a channel from the Communities homepage, you will see blog posts from all 42 Research Communities. If you’d like to explore Behind the Paper blog posts in a specific research area, you can do so by navigating to the Community of your interest in the left-hand side navigation menu, and exploring the channel there, which will have a topic-filtered view of the channel (e.g. Behind the Paper channel on the Chemistry Community)

We look forward to seeing your content on the Communities! If you have any questions about writing a blog post for any channel, please don’t hesitate to contact the team.