Communicating for Impact: The Evolution of Professional Communication Training in the GRÓ Fisheries Training Programme

GRÓ Fisheries Training Programme was established in 1998 to support fisheries institutes in developing countries in meeting the growing demand to manage fisheries in a sustainable way. We train practising fisheries professionals who play an important role in their organisations in managing and utilising aquatic living resources sustainably and for the wellbeing of the nation. For the past 29 years, about 550 fisheries professionals (fellows) have completed the training, most of them coming from Africa. Their training has mainly been in four areas: Aquatic Resource Assessment and Monitoring (ARAM), Fisheries Policy and Management (FPM), Quality Management of Fish Handling and Processing (QM), and Sustainable Aquaculture (SAq). In the early years of the programme the focus was on knowledge and technical skills, but in recent years the training has moved more towards analysis and interpretation. Recently, an additional component has been added to the training, professional cross-cultural communication aimed at strengthening fellows' ability to communicate across cultures, disciplines and diverse audiences. Over the years we have realised that the highly applied research projects the fellows complete have not received the attention they deserve and the impact has therefore been quite limited. To meet this challenge, we started putting more emphasis on strengthening fellows' communication skills and linking the research project better with national policies on fisheries by having the fellows use data from home in their individual research projects. We started building up a feedback-based communication strategy within the programme with a focus on short presentations, proposal writing, visual aids, language, key message clarity, and the use of AI. These communication elements are addressed in all tasks throughout the six-month period with appropriate feedback and guidance. We also increased the discussions and reflections during the training with an emphasis on developing evidence-based arguments to prepare them for real situations in their home countries. The last addition to the collection of “communication tools” is the creation of posters where the main research outputs and key messages are presented and displayed at a poster session. This approach, along with leadership training, has received great attention and fellows have reported increased self-esteem, courage and empowerment. We see our alumni being given more responsibilities in their home fisheries and aquaculture sectors, and many have risen to the ranks of lead scientists, directors, and regional leaders. We attribute this success to our emphasis on leadership training with a focus on broad communication skills on top of strong scientific and applied research. We believe this approach will strengthen our fellows in their future roles in fisheries and aquaculture, especially at the table where they meet stakeholders, international donors and policy makers.