Exploring researchers’ professional digital discursive practices: A genre analysis of European research project websites

Abstract

Academics’ professional and discursive practices are becoming more and more varied and demanding. It seems to be increasingly necessary to collaborate and network with international scholars and obtain funding from international institutions and not only to publish research results, but also to disseminate them globally. In this context, international research project websites play an important role and are a relevant object of analysis. Drawing on Genre Analysis this paper presents a text-based rhetorical analysis of a sample of 10 websites from European research projects within the H2020 program. Specific digital genres in the sample are identified and labelled, and some genre relations established between these and other genres. A distinction is drawn between genres that are labelled “website-generated” and “website-hosted”. A move analysis of website-generated genres is then presented discerning specific moves and communicative functions bearing in mind the context in which these websites are created. Through the analysis, valuable insights are gained into international researchers’ professional and digital discursive practices in English and how these websites are used to gain visibility and promote the research groups’ self-branding by disseminating new knowledge, promoting their work and accounting for the funding received.