Each month, the Impact Team releases a Research Impact Update, sharing everything that’s going on in the world of impact. I published the first issue of the Research Impact Update in May 2023, making this month’s our 30th round-up of the latest impact news. To celebrate this 30th issue, we’re bringing you the impact team’s 30 top tips for research impact.
30 Top Tips
- Make sure that you have a clear understanding of what impact is, and what this can look like in practice in different contexts.
- Identify who might help you to work towards your impact – from policymakers to local community groups, you will need to engage with others to build your impact pathway.
- Engage with stakeholders as early as possible. This can help you to make sure that you’re addressing a real problem as it is understood by the people experiencing it, not just an external assumption of it. It also means that you can plan your activities and outputs with and for the groups that will benefit from them.
- Take time to understand the perspectives and priorities of various stakeholders. This can help to identify (and mitigate) potential conflicts or problems, and inform project design.
- Clarify prior experience and project roles – impact might fall mostly to one person, or be spread more broadly. Is someone well experienced in impact evaluation, does someone have a strong relationship with a beneficiary or is there someone that loves working in public engagement? Lay out who is responsible for which elements of your impact work, and play to your strengths.
- Think about what training and development the project team might benefit from (and factor this into project plans and bids).
- Value relationships and beneficiary perspectives, especially when working with the community groups. Bad experiences can damage relationships now and going forwards, and lead to hesitancy in interacting with research.
- Take your time. Impact doesn’t happen overnight, and embracing a slower process can help to develop effective and deeply embedded impacts.
- But also… be ready to respond quickly. When working with businesses or policy impact, you may be faced with time pressure. Have information ready to go in a format suitable for non-academic audiences.
- Design your research activities and outputs with your beneficiaries in mind, not just what you are used to doing and is typical for your field. A website, app, handbook or performance might be a more useful output for your audience than a journal article.
- Evaluate regularly. Iterative evaluation can help to address problems before they escalate, prioritise work that is meeting your stakeholders needs, and identify opportunities to steer your work in the most effective direction.
- Be creative with your evaluation. From surveys to graffiti walls, data-informed reports to vox pops, there are many different ways to evaluate impact work. Different methods are useful in different contexts, and they can often work well in combination.
- Understand your resources. If you familiarise yourself with the available resources early on (such as the impact team, local support, digital resources and knowledgeable colleagues), you can make sure that you are accessing the right support at the most appropriate times.
- Prioritise your activities. Sometime projects may have multiple potential impacts, but limited resourcing and capacity to pursue them them. Prioritise which ones to pursue, in which order, to maximise the benefits of your work and support relationships with stakeholders.
- Factor impact into project plans and funding bids. Be clear and realistic about what you need, what experience you have, and what it will help you to achieve.
- Revisit your goals and be flexible. Your intended impact and ways to achieve it may shift as your project develops and understanding of stakeholder needs change.
- Think broadly about who may benefit from your research – might the relevant group be broader than you think? Are there other groups that might benefit? Could there be secondary beneficiaries – those who benefit beyond the initial, direct reach of your research?
- Be clear in your own motivations and drivers to achieve impact. These can vary greatly and there is no right answer. Benefitting society could be at the core of your work, you might be pursuing impact to build your academic profile, or it might have been a factor required to gain funding. Understanding why you’re trying to achieve impact can help you to maintain your motivation and direction.
- Also understand your team’s motivations. You may not all have the same drivers, and it can be beneficial to understand your colleagues’ perspectives. This can help to boost motivation and avoid minimise conflicts.
- Tailor your communications to suit your stakeholders. Different groups might benefit from social media interactions, structured meetings, or regular newsletters, for example. What will they interact with, and how are they able to respond?
- Avoid jargon and complex language, as this can alienate those who do not work directly in your field of research. Use the language that is most appropriate for your audience. Don’t assume levels of literacy or education.
- Have clear systems of record keeping and evidence storage. Collecting information and evidence as you go, and storing it in a clear and consistent manner, can help you to identify gaps in information and save time (and stress) later in a project.
- Consider timing of evidence collection. Early evidence collection has the benefits of avoiding problems of key contacts moving on or details being forgotten; later collection can allow for impact to be evidenced at a more developed stage, demonstrating greater reach and/or significance. Consider how these factors will come into balance in your context.
- Think about who you’re gathering evidence for – a REF panel, your funder, or for your own reflective purposes? What does it need to demonstrate for this audience?
- Make the most of work that is already being done. Financial statements, company reports, or external publicity work (e.g. user testimonials) can be great forms of evidence that already exist, and don’t add any additional burden to the research team.
- Look out for quick wins. Small benefits on the way to your main intended impact can be a good way to build trust and maintain motivation.
- Keep ‘grimpact’ in mind – unintended negative impacts of research upon society. How can this be mitigated or avoided altogether.
- Speak to colleagues about how your work might overlap. Collaborating with colleagues can help to reach the right groups in the most appropriate way, or to apply your research in a context that you hadn’t considered.
- Think beyond the end of your project. What support might you offer to beneficiaries beyond the end of this project? How can you maintain relationships? What research ideas of further pathways to impact might have been prompted by the current project – and what can you do to start building the necessary relationships?
- Reach out! There are various routes for support around impact, from faculty impact leads to the DRI Impact Team. We are here to help and happy to discuss your work towards impact.
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