1. Writing for Impact Research Active Staff Workshop
29 Nov 2016
Wolfson Research Exchange
George Ttoouli 1

2. Session Overview Welcome / Introductions Talk by Impact Officers:
Katie Irgin (Sciences & WMS)
Claire Battye (Social Sciences)
Anne Maynard (Sciences)
Workshop 1: Identifying potential impacts
Break
Workshop 2: Creating a Pathway to Impact 2

3. Impact: a timeline 2010: Impact Pilot Study
2014: First official impact exercise
July 2016: The Stern Review: ‘Building on Success and Learning from Experience: An Independent Review of the Research Excellence Framework’
Increasing flexibility of submissions
Increasing opportunities for interdisciplinarity
Call to broaden the definition of impact 3

4. "The essential element of impact is change: the ways in which individuals, groups, communities or organizations are changed through your country grant program; the results of the program. We may therefore define impact as: any effect of your country grant program on an individual, group or community." (Markless 2009:135)
David Markless, 2009, 'What is impact assessment and why is it important?' Performance Measurement and Metrics 10(2): 4

5. Defining Impact: REF 2014
“Impact was defined as ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’.” (HEFCE, 2014)
“The criteria for assessing impacts were ‘reach’ and ‘significance’” (REF 2014)
Economic and social benefits have had most attention 5

6. From the Stern Review, July 2016
“Guidance on the REF should make it clear that impact case studies should not be narrowly interpreted, need not solely focus on socio- economic impacts but should also include impact on government policy, on public engagement and understanding, on cultural life, on academic impacts outside the field, and impacts on teaching.”
( ref-stern-review.pdf) 6

7. Breaking impact down Long / medium / short term impacts
By location; also, e.g. academic / public sites
By audience / stakeholders / intended beneficiaries
By theme: economic / social / cultural / health / pedagogy
Other categories? 7

8. Pathways to Impact (PoIs)
RCUK require a ‘Pathways to Impact’ statement with your research bid applications:
“Grants will not be allowed to start until a clearly thought through and acceptable Pathways to Impact statement is received.
A clearly thought through and acceptable Pathways to Impact statement should:
be project-specific and not generalised;
be flexible and focus on potential outcomes” ( 8

9. RCUK’s PoI Guidance
A clearly thought through and acceptable Pathways to Impact statement should:
be project-specific and not generalised;
be flexible and focus on potential outcomes;
Researchers should be encouraged to:
identify and actively engage relevant users of research and stakeholders at appropriate stages;
articulate a clear understanding of the context and needs of users and consider ways for the proposed research to meet these needs or impact upon understandings of these needs;
outline the planning and management of associated activities including timing, personnel, skills, budget, deliverables and feasibility;
include evidence of any existing engagement with relevant end users. 9

10. Tips on Delivering Impact
Impacts should arise directly from the value of your research.
Define your impacts early, so they inform your project design (methodology, budget, etc.)
Your PoI “should set out what the applicant(s) will do to realise the potential impacts” (RCUK)
Therefore, your impacts are like project objectives: make them SMART 10

11. Types of Impact Delivery
Print: articles, chapters, books, flyers
Online: social media, websites, blogs, digital publications (see Resource Bank)
Live: workshops, events, public talks, radio, TV
Pedagogy
Other examples? 11

12. Resources / Further Advice
Warwick’s Impact Officers (by department)
The ESRC’s Impact Toolkit
REF2014 Case Studies Database
RCUK Pathways to Impact
RAS Resource Bank
Researchfish
Gateway to Research 12