I want to learn more about impact
What is impact?
Imagine what might be possible if we could harness the collective wisdom of the world’s most intelligent people to tackle the challenges facing the world today. We could do amazing things.
In this explainer, I’m going to give you simple definitions and explain what works when you want to generate impact from your research, so you can stop wasting time and generate meaningful and lasting change.
In a nutshell
IMPACT = BENEFIT
In other words, impact is the good researchers do in the world (Reed, 2018).
Or in more academic words, "impact is demonstrable or perceived benefits to individuals, groups, organisations and society (including human and non-human entities in the present and future) that are causally linked (necessarily or sufficiently) to research" (Reed et al., 2021).
Research impact guides
Our essential series of 'how to' guides for researchers, designed to help you embed impact in your work:
Engagement for Impact
The power of stories to construct a pathway to impact that can inspire change
Stories can do more than just help us communicate our research more effectively. By understanding the characteristics of good stories, it is possible to structure pathways that lead to powerful and effective impacts from our research.
Do your design skills undermine your credibility and impact?
Poorly designed project websites, policy briefs and reports can do more to harm your prospects of generating impact than you might think. This guide will help you spot design issues that might be undermining your perceived credibility and help you raise your game by applying some simple design principles.
Three options for busy academics whose research could make money
Discovering that your research has commercial value is a mixed blessing for many researchers. Not wanting to abandon academia for business, many researchers do very little with the opportunities that arise, and as a result squander the chance to generate impacts from their work. However, you don’t have to change careers to exploit your IP.
How to evidence the impact of Continuing Professional Development and other training based on your research
Training is an effective way of building and enabling others to generate impact from your research at scale. This short guide gives you 5 steps to capture the impacts arising from any training course you run based on your research.
How to evidence the impact of Continuing Professional Development and other training based on your research
Training is an effective way of building and enabling others to generate impact from your research at scale. This short guide gives you 5 steps to capture the impacts arising from any training course you run based on your research.
How to get commercially sensitive data to evidence economic impacts from research
If your research has been commercialized in some way, then you may be asked to evidence the economic benefits arising from your work. Economic claims are harder to evidence than you might think, because many companies are nervous about sharing commercially sensitive data. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. In this guide, we’ve suggested a few things that might get you something useful.
Free online training
Take our free online training course
This course will help you fast track the impact of your research, no matter what career stage or discipline you are in. It will inspire and equip you with the skills and confidence you need to make a step change in the impact of your research. It takes around 10-20 minutes to work through the course materials each week over 5 weeks, and anywhere from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours to complete each week's tasks. This gives you time to apply what you learn to your own research.
Download slides from our most popular impact training courses
Find out more about our impact training courses or download slides:
Book a course
What training do you want?
Videos