I recently reviewed a university research magazine that cost £42,000 to produce. It was 32 pages, beautifully designed, printed on heavy stock with a spot-UV cover. It looked like a premium product — and it was. The problem: nobody read it. The writing was competent but lifeless. The quotes sounded like they'd been generated by a template. The articles informed but never engaged.

£42,000. For a magazine that nobody read.

This happens more often than you'd think — not because universities don't care about quality, but because most people who commission research magazines have never commissioned one before. They don't know what to ask for, how to brief suppliers, or what separates a good quote from a bad one. So they default to what feels safe: a design agency they've worked with before, a template that looks professional, a process that minimises risk.

The result is a magazine that looks beautiful and reads like it was written by committee. Here's how to avoid that.

Step 1: Separate Writing From Design

This is the single most important decision you'll make — and the one most universities get wrong.

Design agencies are good at design. They are not good at writing. But most universities commission a design agency to produce their magazine, and the agency subcontracts the writing to a junior copywriter who charges £200 a day and has never interviewed a professor in their life. The result is grammatically correct copy with no soul.

Commission the writing separately. Hire a journalist or research writer — someone whose full-time job is interviewing people and turning those interviews into compelling stories. Give them a brief, a list of researchers to talk to, and a word count. Let them produce the copy. Then give that copy to the designer.

This approach has three advantages: (1) the writing will be better, because it's done by a specialist; (2) the design will be better, because the designer is working with real content rather than placeholder text; (3) you'll probably save money, because you're not paying agency markup on a subcontracted writer.

Step 2: Brief the Writer Properly

A bad brief produces bad work. A good brief tells the writer: who the magazine is for, what it's trying to achieve, which researchers to contact, what topics to cover, how long each article should be, what tone to use, what to avoid, and what a successful outcome looks like.

A good brief includes:

Step 3: Let the Writer Interview — Don't Send Written Briefs

The most common mistake in commissioning research writing: the commissioner sends the writer a folder of "background material" — journal abstracts, grant summaries, existing press releases — and asks them to produce articles from those documents.

This produces copy that reads like a document review. It's accurate. It's complete. It's completely uninteresting.

A writer needs to interview the researchers. Not email them a list of questions — actually talk to them, for 20–45 minutes, in person or on the phone. The best stories, the best quotes, the best insights emerge in conversation. They don't emerge from reading an abstract.

If a potential supplier says they can write the magazine from desk research alone, thank them and find someone else. The writer should spend the majority of their time interviewing, not writing. The writing is the last 20% of the job. The interviewing is the first 80%.

Step 4: Give the Writer Access, Not Interference

Writers need access to researchers. They don't need you on the call. They don't need a list of approved questions. They don't need a PR officer in the room.

The most productive interviews happen when the researcher and the writer are alone together — ideally in the researcher's lab or office, where the environment provides colour and detail. When a comms officer sits in, the researcher speaks to the comms officer, not to the writer. The result is a guarded, institutional conversation that produces guarded, institutional copy.

Trust the writer you've hired. Give them the researcher's contact details and let them arrange the interview directly. The less you mediate, the better the content will be.

Step 5: Limit the Review Cycle

This is where good magazines go to die.

A typical university magazine review cycle: the writer submits a draft. The comms officer reviews it and sends it to the researcher. The researcher sends it to their department head. The department head sends it to the PVC for research. Everyone has changes. Some changes contradict each other. The writer receives a document with tracked changes in five different colours and a covering email that says "I think we're nearly there."

Every round of review adds cost, delays the schedule, and — crucially — makes the writing worse. Not better. Worse. Because each reviewer wants to leave their mark, and the mark they leave is usually the removal of anything interesting that might be challenged.

The fix: agree the review process before you commission the work. Two rounds of review is reasonable. One person with sign-off authority per article. Researchers review for factual accuracy only — not for style, not for tone, not for whether the article makes them look sufficiently important. If you can't protect the writer from a five-stage review cycle, the magazine will read like it went through five stages of review.

Step 6: Don't Buy Design You Don't Need

Some design agencies will pitch you a bespoke design with custom illustration, infographics, pull quotes, sidebars, multiple typographic treatments, and a cover that costs more than the writing budget for the entire magazine.

Some of this is valuable. Most of it is not. The reader doesn't notice whether you used three typefaces or five. They don't notice whether the infographics were custom-drawn or adapted from a template. They notice whether the magazine feels professional, whether the photography is good, and — above all — whether the writing is worth reading.

Spend your budget on the things that affect the reader's experience: good writing, good photography, good printing. Spend less on design complexity. A clean, well-executed design with strong typography and excellent photography will look more professional than an over-designed magazine with mediocre content.

Step 7: Get Comparable Quotes — But Don't Choose the Cheapest

Get quotes from at least three suppliers. But understand what you're comparing.

A quote of £8,000 that doesn't include original photography, doesn't include printing, and is based on the writer working from desk research rather than interviews is not comparable to a quote of £22,000 that includes all of those things. The cheaper quote looks better on paper. It will produce a worse magazine.

Ask every potential supplier the same questions: Does the quote include original photography? Does the writer interview researchers directly? How many rounds of review are included? What's the print specification? What's not included that I'll need to source separately?

The cheapest quote is rarely the best value. The best value is the supplier who understands what you're trying to achieve and can deliver it with the fewest headaches.

A Note on Stokel Publishing

Since you're reading this on our website: we produce research magazines from start to finish — writing, photography, design, and print management. We charge £18,000–35,000 per issue, depending on length and complexity. That includes everything: interviews with your researchers, original photography, bespoke design, two rounds of review, print management, and delivery.

If you've been asked to produce a research magazine and you're not sure where to start, get in touch. We'll talk through your requirements and give you a fixed quote with a clear timeline. No hidden costs. No scope creep. No magazine that costs £42,000 and sits unread.