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Solving the
systems challenge
in science
communication.
Science often fails to reach the right people for two reasons: poor scicomm and a broken system.
Most organisations work on fixing the first.
Many fail to work on the second.
Karika works on both.
- MAKING MEANING. MOVING MINDS.
The Problem
In public health, development, and research ecosystems, science must move through many hands.
Researchers & Experts
Produce Evidence,
Need Translation
Institutions & Universities
Generate Knowledge, Shape Incentives
Funders & Philanthropists
Set Priorities, Shape Expectations
Policymakers & Government
Require actionable,
Contextual evidence
Implementers & Frontline Systems
Need Usable Tools & Contextual Materials
Communities & End Users
Hold lived experiences, Shape legitimacy
Science moves through many hands before it reaches the people who need to act on it.
Each transition, researcher to institution, funder to policymaker, implementer to community, is a place where meaning shifts.
What convinces a funder may be unusable by a community health worker. What works in a policy brief may mean nothing to the layman.
This is not a content problem. It is a systems problem.
Most institutions communicate to one audience at a time. Karika builds the strategy that holds across all of them
Why communication fails
Each actor brings different motivations, timelines, vocabularies, and priorities.
When these differences are not accounted for in how communication is designed and delivered, the result is unpredictable with a high chance of failure.
Different Motivations
What motivates a researcher to publish is not what motivates a policymaker to act, or a funder to renew funding, or a community to change behaviour. One message cannot serve four different motivations.
Different Timelines
Research moves in years. Policy windows open and close in weeks. Implementation cycles run to quarters. Communication that doesn't account for timing never arrives on time.
Different Vocabularies
The language of rigorous evidence is not the language of budget allocation, programme design, or community trust. Each audience speaks a different one — and hears only its own.
Different Priorities
What counts as meaningful impact to a funder may be invisible to a frontline worker. What matters to a community may not register in a policy brief. Each measures differently — and acts accordingly.
This leads to predictable failures at each level.
Fragmented Institutional Narratives
Missed Policy Windows
Weak Community Uptake
Underutilised Evidence
Diluted Programme Impact
Credibility Gaps with funders, stakeholders & communities
The Three Part approach
Researching the ecosystem.
Building the strategy.
Activating the assets.
01
Research the Ecosystem
Map before we build
Every engagement begins by mapping the ecosystem your organisation operates within. The actors, their incentives, the power structures, the communication gaps, and the policy windows that are open or closing. No strategy is designed before this picture is clear.
02
Build the Strategy
Design for the system, not silo
Communication frameworks are designed to work across the full system, aligned with your project goals, the policy cycles you need to influence, and the implementation pathways that actually determine uptake. Strategy is not a document. It is a set of decisions about where to direct effort and why.
03
Activate the Assets
Deliver what the system can use
The final stage develops the communication materials and tools each actor in the system actually needs policy-ready narratives, community-rooted content, institutional messaging, and the capacity for your teams to sustain this independently after the engagement ends.
Ready to treat scicomm as a capability, not a checkbox.
Research institutions, funded organisations, and science-based enterprises in India are doing work of genuine consequence. And yet the communication surrounding that work, for funders, for policy makers, for the public, for industry, routinely fails to represent it with the same rigour.
At Karika, our three-part approach helps close this gap and drive impact, not only awareness.
Decoupled from Goals
No Stakeholder Strategy
First Budget Cut
Scaling without a Story
Knowledge Deficit Model
Active Outreach but not Influential
RECOGNISE ANY OF THESE?
THAT'S WHERE WE START.