*Blog post relates to talks at PraxisAuril (October 2018) and Swansea University ((May 2019). This post summarises the talk (slides available here)*

First things first, what do we mean by research impact? If we look at various definitions underpinning funding (eg UKRI) and assessment (eg REF) they ultimately coalesce as the ‘provable change (benefit) of research in the ‘real world’. That is, effects of research which are felt beyond the academic walls. Accordingly it is measured by indicators of change outside of the university, and not by markers of academic interest or publication attention.

But let’s put in some clear caveats: there’s no one size fits all, and as a community we must as be sensitive to unscripted biases. For example, the shorthand to ‘benefits’ overlooks the perspectives by which all change is seen. What is good to one person may be bad for another. For example, reducing gambling is brilliant for society, less so for casinos. Similarly within arts and humanities, effects may be less directional and may aim towards disrupting archaism or challenging mindsets. Research which is diffused into the public arena (rather than having neatly targeted beneficiaries) will also always feel the extra weight of demonstrating change in an audience it can’t quite see. More fundamentally, the forced definitional division between academia and non-academia (‘real world’) must be used to understand where effects are felt, not to elevate or disconnect academia from its community home. So whilst definitions and shorthands are useful, they can not and should not be used as blueprints for impact irrespective of discipline or topic.

In the talk I reflect on 6 key lessons about impact:

1. We are all custodians of impact; we each have a piece of the puzzle

Impact is not the domain of one person or one part of the research landscape. Impact is a brokered, negotiated and connective art, achieved by and for people in a myriad of ways. And it’s a team game. We each have skills, perspectives, experiences, networks and ideas which can contribute to an impact cauldron of possibilities. By recognising which parts of the impact journey we can each support (as academics, research managers, KEC professionals, communicators, strategists, funders, publishers (etc) the big picture becomes far easier to see. For this we need to develop our impact literacy (download Emerald Publishing’s Impact Literacy Workbook here).

2. We often speak different languages

‘Impact’ is of course not a new word (although admittedly the tone has historically been one more akin to meteoric crises than research assessment). In recent years however impact has been catapulted into our collective consciousness as an important ‘thing’, but without necessarily a unified sense of what ‘it is’. Impact is often used both as a blanket term for the influence of an institution, and for the necessarily narrow contents of a REF case study. Without heading down deep philosophical paths about what it should be, the net result of blurred definitions is that we talk at odds thinking the other person knows what we mean. We end up accidentally pulling in different directions and watching impact potential drain from the space between us.

3. Impact case studies show the sausages, not the sausage factory

Sector wide communiques about impact (such as the REF 2014 impact database) share one key feature: they only show the wins. They don’t show the paths which didn’t play out, the contracts that weren’t signed, or the audiences that didn’t show. They neatly omit the blood sweat and tears of fighting for new partnerships only to have the company bought out at the last minute. Exalted cases are those which got through impact boot camp and found themselves presented shinily on the impact stage. If we only use these incredible examples to understand how impact works, we will never learn from what didn’t or appreciate that it’s ok for impact not to be perfect.

4. We need healthy, connected institutions

Just as we need to recognise individual contributions to impact, we need to ensure our institutions – which are invariably so complex – purse impact healthily.  We need to invest financially and culturally in impact, and focus on:

• Commitment – The extent to which the organisation is committed to impact through strategy, systems, staff development and integrating impact into research and education processes.
• Connectivity- The extent to which the organisational units work together, how they connect to an overall strategy, and how cohesive these connections are.  
• Coproduction – The extent of, and quality of, engagement with non-academics for to generate impactful research and meaningful effects.
• Competencies– The impact-related skills and expertise within the institution, development of those skills across individuals and teams, and value placed on impact-related specialisms. 
• Clarity-How clearly staff within the institution understand impact, how impact extends beyond traditional expectations of academic research, and their role in delivering impact
• For more on institutional health and to assess your own institution download Emerald’s Impact Institutional Health Workbook here).

5. We have a tendency to chase impact unicorns.

I’ve spoken about this before, but it’s absolutely worth saying again. The weight of expectation for impact risks mythicising high level impact to the point of meaninglessness. I’ve seen academics tearful after being rebuffed for only achieving national policy change. I’ve myself been advised to bypass work with local vulnerable communities as REF would need larger scale effects. And I’ve seen institutions plan to spend hundreds of thousands on equipment because ‘some of the four star cases had a scanner’. Whilst it’s of course challenging for institutions to balance meaning with pursuing investment for their sustainability,  we need to recognise the implications of pursuing big effects expense of meaningful smaller changes. This is always encapsulated for me by the wonderful Derek Stewart who remarks that – during his treatment for throat cancer – he also just wanted to be able to swallow. Swallow. Such a simple but meaningful change which could be so easily obscured if we only gaze at the fantastical horizon.

And finally,

6. REF, done irresponsibly, is like a strip club. Some people go in with money, some leave with money, and everyone feels a bit dirtier. I think I’ll leave that point there.

Ultimately if we want to optimise the benefits of research, we need to connect expertise and centralise meaning. So, if impact is the challenge of connection, imagine what we can do if we work together.

Acknowledgements to Dr David Phipps, Emerald Publishing, Derek Stewart, University of Lincoln, ARMA and INORMS RISE group

Thanks to all those who came to the impact literacy session at the Division of Health Psychology Conference (Friday 7th September, 2018). References to everything discussed in the talk are below.

IMPACT LITERACY AND SKILLS

Impact literacy workbook and Impact Institutional Healthcheck available at https://www.emeraldpublishing.com/resources/

Bayley, J.E. and Phipps, D. (2017) Building the concept of research impact literacy. Published online in Evidence & Policy Available online http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/pre-prints/content-ppevidpold1600027r2

Bayley, J.E, Phipps, D., Batac, M. and Stevens, E. (2017) Development and synthesis of a Knowledge Broker Competency Framework. Evidence and Policy. Available online https://doi.org/10.1332/174426417X14945838375124 (OA version: https://pure.coventry.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/7270403/PRE_REVIEW_Knowledge_Broker_competencies_for_repository_OPEN.pdf)

REF

REF 2014 impact case study database – http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/

REF 2021 guidelines – http://www.ref.ac.uk/publications/2018/draftguidanceonsubmissions201801.html

MODELS AND FRAMEWORKS

Buxton, M., & Hanney, S. (1996). How can payback from health services research be assessed? Journal of Health Services Research, 1(1), 35-43

Donovan, C. and Hanney, S., 2011. The ‘payback framework’explained. Research Evaluation, 20(3), pp.181-183. Available at http://jonathanstray.com/papers/PaybackFramework.pdf

Phipps, D.J., Cummings, J. Pepler, D., Craig, W. and Cardinal, S. (2015) The Co-Produced Pathway to Impact describes Knowledge Mobilization Processes . J.Community Engagement and Scholarship. See http://jces.ua.edu/the-co-produced-pathway-to-impact-describes-knowledge-mobilization-processes/

Michie, S. Atkins, L, and West, R. (2014). The Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide to Designing Interventions. London: Silverback Publishing. See www.behaviourchangewheel.com

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179-211. Further information available at http://people.umass.edu/aizen/tpb.diag.html

Bartholomew-Eldredge, L.K., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G. and Parcel, G.S., 2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons. Further information at https://interventionmapping.com/

Craig, P., Dieppe, P., Macintyre, S., Michie, S., Nazareth, I., & Petticrew, M. (2008). Developing and evaluating complex interventions: the new Medical Research Council guidance. British Medical Journal, 337, a1655 Available online https://mrc.ukri.org/documents/pdf/complex-interventions-guidance/ NB UPDATED GUIDANCE WILL BE OUT IN 2019

MY BLOGS

Avoiding imposter syndrome and impact

Chasing the impact unicorn

(Impact) life beyond REF

BROADER READING AND RESOURCES

Responsible metrics: www.responsiblemetrics.co.uk

Open Access via Unpaywall add on : unpaywall.org

CASRAI (information standards) https://casrai.org/

Analysing REF case studies: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/publications/Analysis-of-REF-impact.pdf

London School of Economics blog http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/

Evidence and Policy journal  https://policypress.co.uk/journals/evidence-and-policy

Research Evaluation journal  https://academic.oup.com/rev/

 

(I just remembered this when looking through my files…..originally published by Research Fortnight…….still rings true)

As I write this, I’m sitting on a train. I won’t lie, I’m in first class. Admittedly it’s because I stumbled on a great advanced deal, but whatever the reason, my mum is still taking this as a measure that I’ve ‘gone up in the world’.

Around me are a lot of people in suits, lifting their sparkly smartphones to their ears and – largely speaking – impressively balancing passive-aggression with the art of barking orders at junior staff.  The main thing that strikes me is that they seem to know precisely what they’re doing. They have that clear authority, directive (read *ballsy*) communication style and the presence that says ‘don’t interrupt me, I’m overseeing the sale of a small island’.  Sitting here trying not to betray my ‘only here because I got a good deal’ status, I am reminded that it’s very easy to fall into the trap of feeling like an imposter.

Sitting with that blank page to plan impact can feel like stepping into the first class carriage for the first time; not quite knowing what to do, trying to avoid accidental faux pas, and attempting to display enough gravitas to appear native. The introduction of impact to the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) compounded this by rapidly shifting expectations for ‘real world effects’ from applied research to all disciplinary areas.  Whilst universities have been galvanised into more strategic approaches to impact, researchers still face the challenge of establishing just how impact fits with their own work. Watching how people enter the impact carriage is telling. I’ve had people in tears because they feel so completely underequipped to plan impact with something as important as a grant at stake. Conversely I’ve had others bluntly assert their personal exemption because impact is something ‘other people do’.  Generally most people fall somewhere in the middle, seeking to ‘do’ impact in a way that – quite justifiably – fits their discipline, research paradigm and overall ethos on the practical applications of their field of investigation.

In my experience, the REF-led impact-as-assessment rhetoric can taint planning at the funding stage.  It’s easy to overpromise, be unrealistic and guarantee to change the world on a single project because that’s what impact is presumed to be.  Fact: it’s not.  Of course there’s a desire to make big changes, but the smaller, direct benefits of a project (eg. ‘improved NHS staff knowledge’) are crucial milestones along an impact pathway towards bigger, longer term goals (e.g. ‘improved patient wellbeing).

One of the biggest and most pervasive errors at the planning stage is that of poorly thought out relationships between the project, activities, outputs and stakeholders. It’s so easy to accidentally ignore or mask the ways by which impact occurs, undermining the realism, achievability and meaningfulness of any plan. So if you’re facing an impact blank page, I’d suggest – alongside talking with impact specialists in your institution and using online resources (e.g. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/research/impact-toolkit/ – you take a step back and think about the following:

How does your research connect to a (the) bigger problem? All too often we assume – because we ourselves are so invested in the topic area – that the need for the research is obvious.  But it’s vital to fully outline the related non-academic problem and articulate how the project contributes towards a change.  Be clear on the direct results (which you can create) and how these may enable longer term benefits (which you can’t guarantee but you can make a realistic prospect).

How are you connected with the real world?  For research to escape academic captivity, you need to escape too. Build links (networks) with those who can shape, advise or use your research from early in the process. There’s no surer-fire way of annoying the pants off a potential beneficiary than rocking up at the end of the project to tell them what they need. And no, in this context, academics do not count as real world people. However lovely they are.

How do your activities connect with your impact goals? (tagline ‘lose your inner diva’) . One of the easiest traps to fall into is to name drop, jargon-drop or be so devoid of sufficient detail that you expect the panel to accept your impact will happen simply because you’re awesome. Phrases such as ‘the team are made of well respected experts’ may offer credibility to the project, but they do not deliver the realism and achievability needed for impact plans. Similarly broad statements such as ‘we will run workshops with users’ convey little more than ‘we know real people should be spoken to and we know where there’s a room available’.  All it means is that you have a context which is conducive to impact. It says precisely nothing about what you’ll actually do or, crucially, why.  The reviewer needs to be assured that you have chosen activities for a reason, so express your reasoning – ‘The team are made of well respected experts, which allows us to draw on a series of established networks’, and ‘To engage our key user demographic and gather vital feedback on implementation plans, we will run workshops with users’. Makes all the difference.

Have you connected with people who’ll challenge you? Impact needs critical friends – colleagues and stakeholders – who will force you to think beyond the academic merit of the work.  Impact isn’t about grandiose narratives, it’s about understanding what people need and designing achievable routes to get there. Find people who’ll make you justify things.

Have you connected the change to the measure?  Planning the evidence of impact is far easier when you know what kind of changes you’re looking for.  Think through (i) what you want to/think will change, (ii) how you will know a change has happened, (iii) how you could measure or qualify it, and (iv) what evidence you could get to prove it.  Setting this up from the start will make your life a lot easier.

Have you connected your aims with those of the funders? Don’t forget the funders aims, especially when you’re rushing to meet a deadline.  They’re crucial to connecting your project with the bigger (and often impact-focused) aims of the funder/scheme. Go check!!

Remember – impact can’t be templated or prescribed.  Go back to the reason your project is important. Your efforts in the research stage can really help improve someone’s life, even if it’s several steps in the future. And don’t worry about that first class carriage. Everyone there had to step onto it for the first time once too.

 

 

And so we’ve had INORMS. What a week. Frustratingly I spent whatever time I wasn’t impact’ing limping slowly between rooms or collapsed in a heap. Thanks to all who helped out in various ways.

After the ARMA conference I routinely write a blog summary of the Impact Special Interest Group (SIG) session (see those from 2016 and 2017). However this year’s event had a different flavour. Firstly it had the glory that is David Phipps front and centre (after his fantastic plenary). Secondly it had a wonderful international dimension which broadened impact discussions and allowed us to briefly invent ‘impact tinder’…..

So instead of a SIG review, this post picks up three key headlines from talks and discussions with impact colleagues across the week:

1. There’s life beyond the ‘EFs

It’s probably fair to say that the UK impact community operates in a fairly ‘assessment-led’ context much of the time (not of course ignoring impact within the funding space).  The Research Excellence Framework (REF), especially as we get nearer to the 2020 submission date is looming ever larger, and the flurry of impact officer jobs in recent weeks perhaps pays testimony to the weight this holds for institutions. This said, of course impact is not just REF, and many colleagues – speakers and delegates alike – spoke hearteningly about meaningful connections to practice irrespective of formal requirements. Discussions about funders, REF, TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) and the incoming KEF (Knowledge Exchange Framework) reflected balanced caution between welcoming the broadening of agendas against increasing administrative burden. Dialogue with our international counterparts who don’t have, or are yet to fully cement an assessment agenda, refreshed our minds towards research for social benefit full stop. The more we connect cross-nationally, the healthier our practices will be. The challenge is to ensure that the appetite to ‘make a difference’ – which sits so fundamentally within the impact community – is not overshadowed by powerfully selective agendas.

NB: For reference I am by no means anti-REF, and have said before I’m very thankful for the platform it’s opened up to recognise the importance of applied and translational work. My concerns are always about REF being used to disincentivise valuable ‘but not competitive’ practice (eg. bypassing local connections for more lucrative national partners),  amplifying the publish-or-perish mantra with irresponsible metrics (eg. arbitrary impact factor rules) and contractual consequences for poor performance. It is the collateral damage to research, impact, careers and wellbeing that I, like many of us, find so heartbreaking in practice.

2. Healthy contexts and connections are key.

As we all know, impact is not an effortless result of successful dissemination. Yet across the sector we still face the challenge of disrupting simple conceptualisations of impact and overturning default reliance on longstanding measures such as publication metrics. For this, individuals and institutions need to work in sync, not in conflict to embed healthy practices (institutional health slides available here). It is not enough for individuals to build their own impact literacy, as unless this is supported by healthy institutions,skills development and sector-wide messaging, good practice and good intentions will just corrode over time.

A related and continued concern is that REF within institutions is reduced to a discourse of compliance. Within the impact community we’ve had multiple anecdotes about impact officers being told to just ‘make people do impact’, ignoring the sheer scale of tailored translational effort this requires. It overlooks the skills and expertise needed to drive a REF submission, and risks treating REF managers as unskilled ‘REF monkeys’.  Quite on the contrary, managing any element of a REF submission requires extensive knowledge, partnership working, resilience and incredible organisational skills.  A compliance-led culture not only does a considerable disservice to those in these roles, it reduces buy-in by academics to the process and fundamentally undermines REF itself.  Joyfully there are many examples of healthy, connected and committed practice within institutions, where staff are valued and skills recognised.  As we scale up impact agendas internationally, it’s crucial that these healthier models form the basis of institutional practice.

3. We still have a lot of lone wolves.

Impact is a team sport. It can only happen when people work together to connect research to practice. This involves researchers, impact managers, communications specialists, information managers, stakeholders, beneficiaries and many others.  Insights into co-production, creative connections between universities and communities, and broader discourse around public trust in science remind us of both the challenges and opportunities for brokering work beyond the academic wall. However whilst I use the term ‘impact community’, it’s also very apparent that many of colleagues still work in isolation. These lone wolves often shoulder the weight of impact delivery across an department or even institution, and can feel disconnected from peers. Cross-institutional connections, improved alignment of teams (not just additional committees) within the institution and a broader programme of training and development must be central moving forward.

Finally it remains a huge privilege for me to not only be a part of, but able to champion the impact community. It’s incredibly easy to extol the virtues of not only those in the UK,  but also our global peers when the commitment to driving benefits is so clear to see. Of course this short blog post can’t reflect the depth of discussions about balancing accountability for public monies with academic freedom, nor can it capture the wealth of discussions held during INORMS itself.  But it does bear witness to the investment of thinking, time and skills by so many in the sector to drive research meaningfully into practice. And I don’t know about you but that fills me with optimism for the future.

INORMS 2020 is in Hiroshima; imagine how far our collective approach will have got us by then. *Smile*.

Slides from the SIG are available here and the Impact Literacy and Institutional Impact Health Workbooks are available here.

Particular thanks to Anthony Atkin for his gazelle-like microphone management; Laura, Tony, Vicky, Harriet and John from Emerald for continued support and not punching me when I get so impact-exciteable; David Phipps, Jo Edwards, Dace Rozenberga, Esther de Smet and Lorna Wilson for being legends; the Lincoln crowd for being wonderfully  welcoming; and a large army of others for making the annual conference yet again a fantastic event. Cheers!

Impact beyond the REF. Consider that for a moment. What does that mean? What would that look like? And with REF so often synonymised with impact in the UK, how can we extract ourselves from its dominant voice?

I was invited to deliver the opening plenary – alongside Melanie Knetsch (ESRC’s Strategic Lead for Interdisciplinarity, Innovation and Impact) and Professor Peter Kemp (Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, and University of Oxford Social Sciences Division Strategic Impact Lead) – to consider impact beyond the REF. It’s an odd concept because – let’s face it – REF isn’t going anywhere, so establishing ‘beyond’ is immediately difficult in tone.

Ultimately there are numerous ways to look at this.  As my plenary colleagues considered the bigger strategic picture and the policy context, I chose to think about impact on-the-ground and in the lives of researchers, research managers and ‘users’ (more on that later). Here are my headlines:

First things first, impact existed before the REF.  I hope you were sitting down

I don’t want to startle you, but REF didn’t invent impact. I know – it’s a shock. Of course we had impact before REF, we just didn’t really call it that. I started my research career in 2003 and anything beyond the academic world was generally captured by words like ‘applied’, ‘knowledge transfer’ or in my own discipline ‘(health psychology) ‘implementation’.  Impact (with a big ‘I’) didn’t really hit our radar until its introduction to REF in 2011, and even then, only those involved in a REF 2014 submission had to invest effort in tracking, evidence gathering and causative narration. But impact is neither exclusive to or borne from REF. Please breathe again.

REF is a double edged sword (or ‘let’s elevate the value of applied work…..then make them dance for money’)

Unlike previous research assessment exercises, REF elevated the importance of research-driven real world change. For many of us, that recognition offered a welcome rebalancing of what it meant to ‘be an academic’.  However, formalising impact within assessment agendas also introduced weighting, ranking and a financially incentivised need to drive bigger, stronger, more important and further-reaching effects.  Whilst this has triggered investment and innovation, we’ve also witnessed a culture of anxiety and substantive institutional restructuring. If we can continue to use REF to catapult creativity, balanced with fair expectations (and reduced worry about repercussions of not doing impact), perhaps we can really deliver social benefit.

A need for impact literacy across the research system. 

Impact is important, but not all research should have impact. We need discovery science, just as we need philosophical shake-ups of academic assumptions. But we also have a duty of care to pass it forward, whether that’s beyond the academic wall, or to other, perhaps more applied academic counterparts. Everything we know about impact says it can’t be templated and is achieved through multiple routes. Some are scripted, some are opportunistic, but all involve decisions about the best and most purposeful approaches. With so many possible permutations, it’s incumbent on the research community to become impact literate (paper here or OA version here). Let’s be clear,  I don’t mean ‘more training for academics’. Of course training is needed, but what I’m talking about is an understanding of how impact ‘works’ across academics, research managers, institutional leadership, funders, publishers……..a commitment to recognising that impact looks, feels, and operates differently across disciplines and cannot be reduced to metrics at the ‘end’ of the journey.  Joyfully we are seeing considerable energy in this direction – Responsible Metrics calling out bad practice in quantifying effects, drives towards impact literacy embraced by publishers, ‘knowledge mobilisation’ arguably overtaking ‘transfer’ and ‘exchange’ as more expressive terms of implementation. We still have a long way to go, but the more everyone ‘in the frame’ is equipped to judge how their work connects into impact, the fairer (and more effective) we will be.

Finding meaning with ‘users’, not just ‘transferring knowledge’

I personally dislike the word ‘users’, as it conjures up images of some transactional process whereby academics apply their research to a waiting horde and *TA-DA* the public cry tears of joy that their lives are better. I’m not sure quite what language is better (very happy to be advised!) but whatever we use, we need to shift away from simplistic views of impact-as-productisation and impact-as-consumption. Impact can and must always be measured at the level of the beneficiary/ies, in terms of what is meaningful for them.  As we move forward, we’re seeing co-production and patient and public involvement weaved more substantially into research delivery, and this shift of focus away from blunt assessment currency can only be a good thing.

Disrupting simplistic, linear models of ‘ultimate’ impact

Logic models of impact are great (and endorsed fabulously elsewhere) but they can unintentionally reinforce an expectation of linearity. Input-output-outcome models routinely position impact as the ultimate endpoint of a research journey. Fine. Well not fine, actually, if that shifts assessment and thinking to so far down the line that it blinds us to those meaningful effects along the way.  I’ve written before about the dangers of focusing only on ethereal and magical endpoints but if we can truly understand the iterative and co-produced nature of impact, we can make some very meaningful changes indeed.

Valuing and investing in impact professional development or ‘There are people that do this stuff? Like, willingly?’

I’m extremely proud to lead the ARMA Impact Special Interest Group, a group of over 750 research managers with a core, or connected focus on impact. This community of practice grows every year in both size and combined expertise, and offers the most incredible combined set of insights into what it’s like to ‘do impact’. Yet REF risks painting a simple one to one picture of academic (project) to impact, leaving brokers and research manager invisible in impact discourse. Impact needs a strong and valued community of practice, both in terms of dedicated impact professionals and the integration of impact into academic career development. If we don’t acknowledge the skills, efforts and expertise inherent to driving research into practice, quite how much impact can we really expect to have?

Impact does not, and never has equalled REF. Impact is not about assessment compliance, nor is it about demonstrating effects at scale at the expense of meaningful change of any size. We need to recognise impact may be driven by REF, elevated by REF, or conversely deprioritised if it doesn’t ‘fit the REF mould’.

Impact already exists beyond REF.

So perhaps the question shouldn’t be what impact looks like beyond REF, it’s what you’d do even if it wasn’t being measured.

*This blog accompanies a plenary at the Making a Difference: Impact in the Social Sciences’ Conference, April 19th 2018, St Anne’s College, Oxford*

Are you heading for INORMS in June 2018? Are you secretly thinking about impact, and all the joys it holds?

Well, the first step is to admit it. Go on. Treat yourself.

Just as with ARMA conferences in the last few years, INORMS offers a fantastic opportunity to connect with the impact community. If you’re new to impact or a battleworn veteran, you are extremely and equally welcome. More so even than that, you are cordially invited to the Impact Special Interest Group session (Tuesday 5th June, 11.30-12.45, co-hosted by the completely wonderful David Phipps). The session is an opportunity to connect with those working in the same space, discuss areas of challenge/opportunity and to find ways to deliver impact in your own settings. Do consider coming along. There’s no wine/coffee but I’m fairly sure there’ll be flipchart paper and come on who doesn’t love that?

So go on, admit the impact love and indulge yourself. You know you want to.

See you there!

PS. If you’re new to impact/ARMA/INORMS, feeling daunted or just want to connect ahead of the conference feel free to drop me a line.

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.