The ECR Committee organised a Scientific Poster-Making Masterclass with Dr Bethany Oakley in June 2025.
Dr Beth Oakley is a Lecturer in Neurodevelopmental Sciences and Scientific Coordinator for the AIMS-2-TRIALS consortium at King’s College London. Dr. Beth Oakley led a session on how to design clear, well-structured scientific posters that effectively communicate your research. With a strong track record in both research and science organization, Dr. Oakley offers valuable guidance for those looking to present their work with greater clarity and impact. The workshop was open to all ECR members.
Kate Jordan has kindly written a blog summarising the event and it’s value for our ECR members.
Creating and presenting a scientific poster is a familiar task for many of us – whether as students, early career researchers or experienced academics. Regardless of experience or confidence level, designing a poster that communicates your message clearly and leaves a lasting impression can feel challenging.
On Thursday 26th June 2025, the R4N Early Career Researcher network hosted a Scientific Poster-Making Masterclass for 27 early career researchers, led by Dr Bethany Oakley, Lecturer in Neurodevelopmental Sciences and Scientific Coordinator for the AIMS-2-TRIALS consortium. Dr Oakley opened with an exercise: attendees were shown two posters and asked to choose the most accessible one. Despite one visually striking, Star Wars-esque option, the group unanimously favoured the clearer design. This set the tone for a session focused on clarity and intention.
Dr Oakley explored several fundamentals: general dos and don’ts, identifying purpose and audience for maximal impact, delivery mode, and presentation top tips. One key message that ran throughout the session was the importance of thinking about your audience’s perspective. Dr Oakley emphasised that a poster isn’t about showcasing everything you know, but instead should contain what your audience needs to understand. Whether your goal is to share findings, teach a concept, or attract collaborators, defining your purpose helps shape every design decision.
Dr Oakley highlighted the value of letting images, figures and visuals do the heavy work of cutting down on text and tables. With recommendations for user-friendly tools like PowerPoint or BioRender (a platform for creating scientific illustrations) for infographics, and R studio (a statistical computing software for polished and impactful graphs), I left feeling equipped to improve my own future work. We were also reminded that there are no prizes for starting with a blank canvas – templates provide helpful structure, keep font size and style aligned throughout, and reduce the stress of starting from scratch.
While posters should be understandable on their own, we learned how the oral presentation brings your poster to life. Tailoring your delivery to your audience (perhaps by asking about their role or interests) can help create a dynamic, two-way exchange. Dr Oakley introduced how practicing your “elevator pitch” is a handy preparation tool to beat the nerves. Be ready to clearly and briefly explain what your research is, why it matters, and what the key message is in around three minutes to maximise engagement.
For those presenting in person, attendees were left with a practical reminder: always test print your poster on A4 before sending it to the printers. Often, artefacts of templates and awkward formatting can only be seen once on paper, so this step can save us all from last minute re-printing stresses (and incurring their extra costs, too). For those presenting online, she advised zooming in on key parts to guide attention through different poster sections.
Finally, Dr Oakley reminded us that there is no expectation to have all the answers when presenting your work; uncertainty can be an opportunity to connect with our audience and invite valuable discussion. I left the masterclass with a clearer understanding of how to communicate my findings, an appreciation of maximising the audience’s role in shaping content and delivery, and an armful of tools to help design with impact and purpose.
The ECR network attendees found this session equally informative and provided excellent feedback. Below are quotes of their favourite takeaways:
“The masterclass was very comprehensive. Usually poster guidance sessions just focus on the content and formatting but don’t mention the practicalities or oral aspect, so this was very helpful.”
“Getting concrete information about practicalities of poster-making, and thinking about impact and delivery mode – so going beyond the poster-making and thinking about the presentation of it.”
“Focusing on the elevator pitch, but being ready to adapt yourself and turn your poster presentation into a more interactive experience from the get-go. How that presentation adapts to the online environment.”
Why not head over to the membership resources page and view the full recording (login required).