When she passed her PhD viva, literature researcher Ally Louks posted a picture of herself and her thesis on X (formerly Twitter) in November 2024. The photo shared her thesis title: “Olfactory Ethics: The politics of smell in modern and contemporary prose”. The post garnered over 11,000 responses, some deeply negative. Louks received rape and death threats.
Academics in UK universities are increasingly encouraged to share their research with the public. This could be on social media, in media appearances, or by writing for non-academic outlets such as The Conversation.
This work can be extremely valuable and can come with social and professional rewards. The institutions that offer funding for research often ask for a plan for “impact” as part of the applications academics must submit. Having a public profile can have career benefits within a university: it may be considered when researchers seek promotion, for instance.
Beyond the university, this work has the potential to make a positive impact on society, and to make academic research available to a much wider audience than might encounter it otherwise.
However, our research with UK academics who conduct public engagement work shows that this public access to academic expertise is under threat. For some researchers, fear of an abusive backlash now renders the cost of entry into public debate too high.
We have collected 85 survey responses and carried out 13 in-depth interviews with UK academics across disciplines in arts, humanities, health and environmental sciences. We found that 74% of the survey respondents said they had experienced online harms as a result of sharing research, whether in blog posts, traditional media – such as television and radio appearance and news articles – or social media.
The academics told us they lacked training on how to deal with online abuse, harassment and misrepresentation. This left them in vulnerable circumstances and unsupported by universities and research organisations. One said: “They [universities] offer training in how to communicate – write, be interviewed, etc – but absolutely nothing on how to deal with the difficult stuff.”
Some of the academics we spoke to had, like Louks, received rape and death threats. They had faced Twitter pile-ons, abusive mail and emails, hacking and doxxing (having identifying information about them made public). Some had experienced stalking and targeted harassment at their workplaces and around their homes. In many cases, the academics’ workplaces had been contacted with calls for them to resign.
One academic told us they had a folder in their email marked “hate mail”. Another described their experience of the hostile tapping of their phone:
I kept having to tell the police all the time about these threats, and my phone was tapped … That was really bad, because I couldn’t seek support from my support network … not on my phone anyway.
Some described the abuse as a continuous, long-term problem – for example, the respondent who had been targeted “on a daily or weekly basis for years … It put me in a 24/7 cycle of having to think about and respond to abuse.”
A further respondent talked about the strain that managing the abuse put them under: “It just takes all of your time and energy.”
Our research has found that this hate has a massive impact on victims. It takes a professional toll, because time spent managing abuse takes away from doing a job. But it also spills into their personal lives, health and wellbeing. The experiences reported by people in our study included hospitalisations, suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This led to some taking long-term sick leave, while others had to leave their job or move house. One academic said: “I couldn’t go walking on my own, because of … all the threats.”
These are not just harms that stay in the workplace, but are severely affecting researchers’ everyday lives.
Many of our respondents said they felt their institutions were more interested in protecting their reputations than providing adequate support or defending their academics who were subject to this toxic media coverage and abuse.
Safety issues rarely come up when the value of engagement or research impact is discussed. These discussions tend to focus only on an academic’s role in service of society, without recognition that they exist within and as part of the same society.
Impact and engagement activities aren’t simply projects that academics complete and move on from – they may have ramifications that last for years and spill over from professional into personal lives.
We are developing training and guidance for organisations to provide better support for academics in the public eye. Universities and higher education leaders have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees, and more must be done to provide institutional support for those who are subject to digital hate.
