I’ve just spent a fantastic afternoon in the company of representatives from a range of medical research charities and NIHR. The AMRC Impact coffee club – an informal name for a truly valuable group – provides a platform for AMRC and NIHR colleagues to share practice, discuss impact-related challenges, and move as a community towards ‘better impact’.

As you can imagine I was extremely pleased to speak about the challenges for academics (including unsurprisingly REF pressures, competing impact drivers and broader issues around professional development). But this blog isn’t about that….

The main thing that struck me, which strikes me every time I meet with funders, is the strength of commitment to research and effect. Now that sounds obvious of course, but it’s so easy for academics to default to seeing funders as faceless architects of those up-til-4am-with-copious-amounts-of-coffee-to-finish funding bids.

The thing is, everyone I meet from the funding community is driven by what *their* research can achieve. For science. For society. For researchers. For patients…..there is endless behind the scenes activity to amplify both new knowledge and new practice. And it’s not surprising that the medical charities present today have that weaved into their DNA.

I was also reminded however of the challenges of drawing together funders, academics, research managers, patients, carers, policy makers (*complete your own list here*) when the simple ‘impact’ word looks and feels so different for each. I talked today about how even when we’re committed to real world change, as academics we often face the stark choice between chasing impact or the high-quality-paper-which-will-get-us-promoted. From a distance these things don’t look in conflict, but in that microsecond between grant writing / marking essays / picking up workload in an understaffed department, that choice is very real. Ultimately however much you value social change, you’re going to prioritise paying the mortgage.

So where do we go from here? There is a HUGE appetite from the NIHR and AMRC to establish/ reinforce good working practices which support academics not add to the burden. For this to happen we need to establish better dialogue, translate our linguistic shorthands (User? Patient? Stakeholder?) and establish fair impact currencies.

Let’s join the dots. I think something rather amazing might happen

As I sit here at the ARMA Advanced Routes to Impact training, I’m reminded that whilst having done a blog about impact literacy, I haven’t done one on knowledge broker competencies. So I’ll pull my finger out now…..

I’m sat listening to two fascinating talks by Anthony Atkin (University of Reading) and Jacqueline Young (Lancaster University) about institutional delivery of impact and considerations for skills localisation. ie. isolated impact officers doing everything vs. institutions harnessing skills across the university. The talks make mention of the impact literacy paper, but more so the knowledge broker competencies paper. In summary, this is a framework of 80 competencies in 11 categories which reflect the breadth of skills needed to deliver impact. Here’s a swanky looking diagram (thanks Research Media)

There is a HUGE risk that if the diversity of skills aren’t recognised, (a) many impact officers will be working in hugely isolated roles, (b) competencies aren’t appropriately balanced across the organisation, (c) there is no investment in development and (d) impact is neither sustainable nor upscalable.

If we are truly committing to impact beyond short term assessment windows we need to review how it’s delivered (that’s not a dig at REF, it’s quite clear from Catriona Firth‘s talk that actually whilst the REF process is mechanistic, there is a far deeper commitment to longer term benefit through research).

So, impact colleagues, institutions and sector leads……take a step back and look at really what’s needed to deliver impact. Cut through the points of isolation and extend the impact love (ok skills) across the organisation. Surely that can only be a good thing?

2018, and time for a new chapter……

I’m completely delighted to have just been appointed to a new and exciting position at the University of Lincoln. From May 2018 I’ll be the new Director of Research Impact Development, a post which will work across the university to build impact strategy and strengthen impact literacy.  Not only will I be able to support impact in its broadest terms, but I’ll maintain a research component (to keep me rooted in my academic discipline) and continue to connect into the wider research sector.  Basically I’ll be me, being me, for Lincoln, who seem to find that a useful combination.

It’s genuinely fantastic to see an institution taking such a forward looking view of impact.  This post embraces the value of impact beyond REF, and focuses on developing a positive impact culture.  It is to Lincoln’s credit that they have created an innovative post which supports research informed practice, recognises the value of blended professionals, and purposefully commits to driving impact with all its associated complexities.

It is in an enormous privilege to be welcomed into a new institution with such openness, and I’m excited to work with my many new colleagues. There’s already a huge wealth of expertise across impact and broader research management at UoL and I hope I can add something useful.

And before you ask, yes Lincoln are aware of the over excitable handwavy-ness, and they still want me. Turns out Lincoln are hardy people.

We all know public and patient involvement (PPI) is fundamentally important to health research, but what does it mean for impact? How does it challenge our simple definitions of impact? And how can we most meaningfully articulate the benefits of patient involvement in driving real world benefits?

Yesterday I attended a fantastic first meeting of the NIHR Working Group on Public Involvement and Engagement Impact. This group, convened and led by Simon Denegri (@SDenegri), is tasked with unpicking these and further issues around the PPI-impact link. Consisting of a wonderful assembly of PPI leads, impact people, Department of Health strategists and – most importantly – patient representatives, the working group is a space to challenge, agree, disagree, champion and have those vital lightbulb moments only possible through shared learning.

The working group leadership will draw together the broad and energetic discussions into some coherent summaries(!), but ahead of that, I think it’s fair to say:

• There is HUGE commitment to meaningful patient involvement, and excellent work going on across the country to strengthen how this is done in practice
• There is an undoubted challenge in knitting this together with the ‘impact agenda’ within the research sector, and a need to avoid simplifying PPI as just a pathway towards something measurable. PPI does something far more, has effects which are far less ‘tangible’, and cannot be decoupled from the value to patient, researcher and research alike.
• Ultimately there is a moral and ethical right for patients (and their carers) to have their voice heard in research which affects them. We cannot and should not dilute their voice and instead need to look to our research processes to see where we can improve this relationship.

Where that gets us for impact remains to be seen. But I’m definitely looking forward to working it out.