The term ‘impact’ has become so familiar that it is easy to forget how much effort was invested in embedding it in British academia. Marta Natalia Wróblewska takes a look at the emergence of the discourse of impact in the UK and its transfo…
Category: impact agenda
The impacts agenda is an autonomous push for opening up and democratizing academia, not part of a neo-liberal hegemony
Improving academic impact has been given a bad name in some academic circles, who link it to a near-conspiracy theory view of the powers of ‘neo-liberalism’. But Patrick Dunleavy and Jane Tinkler argue that (despite one or two bureaucratic distortions, like the REF), the impacts agenda is centrally about enhancing the efficacy of scientific and … Continued
Gender and the ‘impact’ agenda: the costs of public engagement to female academics
Engaging in public discussion is a crucial aspect of academia. At the same time, female academics often encounter sexist abuse as a result of such engagement. Heather Savigny draws on interview data to argue that while women may seek to actively build impact and public engagement in to their research agendas, the site of interaction between media and academia is gendered and […]
Assessing Impact Assessment – What can be learnt from Australia’s Engagement and Impact Assessment?
The impact agenda is an international and evolutionary phenomenon that has undergone numerous iterations. Discussing the development and recent release of the results of the Australian Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA), Ksenia Sawczak considers the effectiveness of this latest exercise in impact assessment, finding it to provide an inadequate account of the impact of Australian research and ultimately a shaky evidence […]
A Tale of Two Agendas – or why we need to think differently about impact of research in international development
In addition to the established impact agenda, those doing research for development now also have to contend with the ODA research agenda, primarily aimed at generating impact in developing countries. But as Valeria Izzi observes, while there are clear similarities between the two, so far remarkably little reflection has gone into how they fit together and interplay. There is a […]
Making visible the impact of researchers working in languages other than English: developing the PLOTE index
As outlined in the Leiden Manifesto, if impact is understood in terms of citations to international publications, a bias is created against research which is regionally focused and engaged with local society problems. This is particularly critical for researchers working in contexts with languages other than English. Peter Dahler-Larsen has developed the PLOTE index, a new indicator which hopes to […]
The impact agenda has led to social media being used in a role it may not be equipped to perform
In a rapidly changing higher education landscape, where the meaning of “impact” and the expectations surrounding it are continually developing, the perceived relevance of social media seems obvious. Accordingly, increasing numbers of institutions are encouraging their researchers to take up social media to communicate their research to wider society. However, as Katy Jordan and Mark Carrigan explain, the rhetoric and […]
The role of the self in the research process: reflections on researching the REF as a PhD student
In this short, reflective post, Emily Yarrow considers her experiences as a PhD student researching women’s lived experiences of research evaluation in the UK and particularly the anxieties she felt as a junior researcher interviewing very senior, esteemed academic colleagues. It is important to reflect on the role researchers play in the interviewing and data collection process, and also on […]
The gendered impact agenda – how might more female academics’ research be submitted as REF impact case studies?
As the impact agenda increases in importance, appropriate consideration should be given to its effects on female academics. The REF has obviously gendered implications, with a number of different factors combining to exacerbate existing inequalities in the academy. Emily Yarrow and Julie Davies have examined impact case study submissions to the REF2014 business and management studies unit of assessment and […]
Clickbait and impact: how academia has been hacked
It has become increasingly clear that prevailing academic incentive structures have a potentially damaging and distorting effect on the nature of academic debates. Portia Roelofs and Max Gallien use the example of a controversial recent journal publication to illustrate how deliberately provocative articles have the capacity to hack academia, to privilege clicks and attention over rigour in research. This is […]