This blog is part of a showcase of exhibits from South Asian think tanks participating in the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. You may view other entries on the PEC Showcase Overview Page.

The recent merger between BRAC University and the Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), now known as the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), has prompted the BIGD communications team to design and launch a new institutional website that will represent the combined values and goals of the new institution, as well as incorporate social media tools for communicating their research to target policy audiences.

The communications team’s approach to their new website has been inspired by training provided by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and Practical Action Consulting (PAC) as part of the Policy Engagement and Communication (PEC) programme sponsored by IDRCs Think Tank Initiative. This involved learning about how to use communication tools for social networking such as: Flickr; Instagram; Google +; YouTube; and Twitter; as well as understanding their value in research communication. The Communications team shared these approaches with the website development team, who comprised of staff from BIGD’s IT Section and BRACnet, a software company in Bangladesh.

As the development reaches its final stages, the communications team have presented the new website to senior managers, research and operations staff. Their feedback has been invaluable and shown that BIGD’s stakeholders are pleased with the new website because it is the ability of the website to communicate the new organisation’s combined values and strengths.

The new website will be launched in mid-September 2014 and will incorporate communication tools for linking to social networks specialising in research communications, and popular communication repositories. The BIGD Communications team hope the new site will become a test case for communicating quality research using Web 2.0 technology in Bangladesh.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

This post has been produced as part of the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. However, these are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of TTI. You can find all ongoing outputs related to this project via the PEC mini-site on Research to Action. To get updates from the PEC programme and be part of the discussion sign-up to our RSS or email updates. You can also follow our progress via Twitter using the following hashtag #ttipec.

Feature image courtesy of Rachel Gardner/Flickr.com.