Based on our research on how the humanities are discussed in public media, we have begun generating recommendations for how different groups can put our research into action by taking actions and engaging in communication to reframe how humanities engage with society. Our effort is at an early stage — just proofs-of-concept to start with to demonstrate how our research might be used to design action and communication strategies. We hope that others will use the few recommendations we have so far made as paradigms for ones they can create for their university, community, state, and nation.

We present our recommendations in the form of Call-to-Action and Call-for-Communication “cards.” These are short, everyday-language recommendations or provocations like the “one-pagers” created by the American Academy of Arts & Science’s humanities Indiators project (examples) or cards made to spark public engagement with the humanities by some U.S. state Humanities Councils (examples from Humanities Montana).

WE1S recommendation cards can be combined modularly with the research cards for our “Key Findings,” “Key Collections,” “Key Methods,” and “Key Tools” to create what we call complete “Research-to-Action Toolkits.” Though we have just started creating whole kits, we think they are an important paradigm because they demonstrate the core principle of our WE1S project: that strong advocacy for the humanities in public life needs to be driven by strong research, and vice versa. We hope others will combine our research (findings, collections, methods, tools) with action and communication plans they themselves create to make their own “Research-to-Action Toolkits” for engaging combinations of audiences (such as students, educators, journalists, community leaders, or legislators) in rethinking the role of the humanities in society.