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I want to learn more about impact

What is 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).

Mark S Reed

£24.99 paperback

£9.99 e-book

 

Published: 11th June 2018

Research impact guides

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.

 

 

Presenting with impact

How do you get an audience to actually do something based on your evidence? Everything you’ll wish you’d learned at the start of your career about how to speak with impact. Read the guide or watch the videos to delve deeper into each of the five points.

 

 

How to start a newsletter that will get read and generate impact from your research

Find out why starting a newsletter might drive more impact from your research than engaging with social media, and get 6 tips for creating a newsletter that people look forward to reading and act upon.

 

 

How to design an end-of-project stakeholder meeting to both generate and evaluate impact

A facilitation plan for an end-of-project meeting that avoids “death by PowerPoint” and enables you to co-produce impacts after the end of your research with your stakeholders.

 

 

How to set up a stakeholder advisory panel for your research project (and why it actually delivers impact)

There is strong evidence that advisory panels deliver impact and can enhance your research. This guide explains how you can set one up for your next research project. 

 

 

How to turn your next paper into an infographic

Turn your research findings into an infographic with no cost or design skills required.

 

 

How to make an infographic CV featuring impact that you could actually submit with your next grant application

Consider how you communicate impact on your CV and see how you can do this using infographics, whilst meeting the CV formatting criteria set by a research funder.

 

 

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.

 

 

Top 40 practical tips researchers said helped them achieve impact

Tips from researchers who have achieved impact from their research.

 

 

Six practical ways to make your research more influential

Enhance your influencing skills with these tips for generating impact in policy and practice settings.

 

 

The art of science communication: can the creative arts bring a new dimension to your research?

Guide to working more effectively with creative practitioners to generate impact from research.

Evaluating Impact

Getting testimonials to corroborate the impact of your research

Guide to eliciting testimonials from people who have used or benefited from your research, to help evidence your impact (including a downloadable and editable consent form).

 

The art of science communication: can the creative arts bring a new dimension to your research?

Guide to working more effectively with creative practitioners to generate impact from research.

Evidencing impact from media engagement

Find out how to evaluate impacts arising from media engagement, by planning impacts with indicators you can track, or via social media analysis, the funnel approach or by using before/after polling data.

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.

Evidencing impacts from public engagement

Our guide and toolkit on collecting evidence to prove your public engagement really made a difference.

 

 

The Public Engagement Evaluation Toolkit developed by Fast Track Impact with the National Coordinating Centre on Public Engagement and Dialogue Matters for Queen Mary University London:

 

 

How to evaluate complex research impact

Methods to help you disentangle and evaluate complex impacts quickly and easily.

 

 

Get longitudinal impact data with a postcard to your future self

A method to increase the likelihood of impact after an engagement event that lets you collect long-term data on impact that is GDPR compliant.

 

 

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

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. 

Find out more

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Videos

Videos