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The Research Impact Handbook
This book will help you fast track the impact of your research, no matter what career stage or discipline you are in. Prof Reed's evidence-based, relational approach delivers significant, wide reaching and lasting impacts. The book is based on principles that emerged from a decade of research on the generation, sharing and application of knowledge, and has been used to train researchers around the world. Packed full of practical tips and case studies, this book will inspire and equip you with the skills and confidence you need to embed impact in your research.
Mark Reed is Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and Research Manager for an international charity. He is a recognized international expert in impact research with >100 publications, and has won awards for the impact of his research.
"This is the definitive A-Z of research impact. Essential reading for anyone involved in research today." Dr Katharine Reibig, Researcher Development, University of Stirling
"I would recommend this book to any who wants to get better at delivering impact. As well as a good read, the book is also, in a slightly 'meta' twist, a case study of impactful research in its own right." Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy, Higher Education Funding Council for England
"Based on evidence and written with a personal touch, the Research Impact Handbook is your own mentor who explains the why and the how, with many practical resources which can be implemented right away to start making a positive impact on the world." Bec Colvin, PhD student, University of Queensland, Australia
"This book is just what all researchers new to impact need. Mark Reed's approach to impact is grounded, considered, effective and yet humble and easy to follow." Ged Hall, Senior Training and Development Officer, University of Leeds
Mark Reed is Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and Research Manager for an international charity. He is a recognized international expert in impact research with >100 publications, and has won awards for the impact of his research.
"This is the definitive A-Z of research impact. Essential reading for anyone involved in research today." Dr Katharine Reibig, Researcher Development, University of Stirling
"I would recommend this book to any who wants to get better at delivering impact. As well as a good read, the book is also, in a slightly 'meta' twist, a case study of impactful research in its own right." Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy, Higher Education Funding Council for England
"Based on evidence and written with a personal touch, the Research Impact Handbook is your own mentor who explains the why and the how, with many practical resources which can be implemented right away to start making a positive impact on the world." Bec Colvin, PhD student, University of Queensland, Australia
"This book is just what all researchers new to impact need. Mark Reed's approach to impact is grounded, considered, effective and yet humble and easy to follow." Ged Hall, Senior Training and Development Officer, University of Leeds
275 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2016
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June 22, 2016
It may seem arcane, it may seem self-indulgent – academics all in a dither over how to ensure our research has an effect, an impact. Alarmingly for many in the bureaucracies that govern academia the notion of research impact seems to be a new thing. I’ve been around academia (as my on-and-off job) for nearly 30 years, and have trouble thinking of anyone in my circle of friends, co-workers and acquaintances who did scholarly research that they intended would only exist in a specialist journal somewhere to be read by 1.3 people … yet in 2014 academics in the UK found themselves having to be able to demonstrate the impact of our research. Now that is new: most of us want to have an impact, but few of us have got much of an idea about how to demonstrate (or even clearly identify) what that effect might be.
It very quickly became clear to many of us that we were nowhere near as good at ‘doing impact’ as we thought we were, and certainly we were not good at either planning for impact or at demonstrating it. Even so, collectively we came up with some pretty damned good case studies as examples of impact for the national review of University research in 2014. It was this realisation (that we’re not as good as we thought we were) that makes Mark Reed’s excellent Handbook so useful. This is not a wide ranging discussion of impact (but the bibliography includes several references that do just this), its meanings or its suitability for any project; Reed starts from the assumption that all research will/should have an impact but that it is up to research teams (and by this he does not just mean academic researchers, but a much broader group of stakeholders) to identify what that impact might be. Instead, he sets out to give solid, grounded practical advice on how to best achieve impacts from research.
For Reed, impactful research is based in the application of 5 core principles, developed in the opening section of the book:
1) Design impact into the project from the outset
2) Systematically represent the views and interests of those who might have an interest in our research
3) Working from a position of empathy, build long-term, two-way, trusting relationships: this is the core of his position – impact comes from a relational approach to working in and around our research
4) Ensure that research design includes early impact
5) Ensure that research design includes reflection on (and learning from) the project, and also that elements of the impact plan are sustainable.
Then, related to these principles there is a series of steps to effective impact, one linked to each principle – so we’re encouraged to have a sense of what impact looks like, to plan for it, to declutter by getting rid of hindrances and distractions, to be specific about what and who in relation to impact and finally continuously monitor. By this stage Reed has outlined a clear vision of what high impact research looks like and started us on the path to building it into our research projects. The substantial body of the second part of the book is then working through a set of tools and research approaches and actions to help us achieve that goal.
Throughout, the book is packed with sensible, pragmatic and practical advice, hints, tools and techniques. Reed challenges us to complete particular activities that help lay the basis for ensuring research design that builds in impact and sets up mechanisms to allow us to achieve that goal: some of these turned out to be difficult. There is a bunch of things that Reed does on the way to this advice that I really appreciate:
1) He doesn’t assume he knows all the answers, so the advice is grounded in his practice as well as the growing body of scholarly literature relating to research practice
2) He recognises that disciplinary conventions and practices mean that not only do we do things differently, but that ‘impact’ is likely to mean different things and certainly will be assessed differently
3) He makes clear that is we want to be effective in our impact we can’t pick and choose what we do, we have to go on all fronts – at least at the outset – while recognising that exactly what we do will vary markedly from project to project
4) He is clear that impediments to successful impact can be fairly easily addressed by a strategic use of options (oh, and more than a little discipline)
5) Crucially, he is explicit that limiting discussions and analysis to instrumental approaches to impact is utterly invalid
In part I really like many of these because as an historian I really struggle to see how instrumental impact can have any place in my work (aside from a very small number of technical areas), while at the same time having worked as a historian in a tightly focussed government policy and negotiations unit I am also well aware that my work can have a very specific set of impacts. Part of me really relishes the prospect of writing policy briefings based in my work; in some respects it’d be a great challenge.
Based in Reed’s practice in his own scholarly work, in his consultancy and advisory work as well as a corpus of scholarly literature, this is essential for all researchers. It’s certainly demanding, but if we use it well we’ll be able to slough off a whole bunch of poor work practices and build a much more effective set of community and public engagements. The only annoying thing (aside from some presentational irregularities) is that when the next national research review (aka Research Excellence Framework) comes around, there is a good chance that everyone else will have read this and have much better impact statements.
It very quickly became clear to many of us that we were nowhere near as good at ‘doing impact’ as we thought we were, and certainly we were not good at either planning for impact or at demonstrating it. Even so, collectively we came up with some pretty damned good case studies as examples of impact for the national review of University research in 2014. It was this realisation (that we’re not as good as we thought we were) that makes Mark Reed’s excellent Handbook so useful. This is not a wide ranging discussion of impact (but the bibliography includes several references that do just this), its meanings or its suitability for any project; Reed starts from the assumption that all research will/should have an impact but that it is up to research teams (and by this he does not just mean academic researchers, but a much broader group of stakeholders) to identify what that impact might be. Instead, he sets out to give solid, grounded practical advice on how to best achieve impacts from research.
For Reed, impactful research is based in the application of 5 core principles, developed in the opening section of the book:
1) Design impact into the project from the outset
2) Systematically represent the views and interests of those who might have an interest in our research
3) Working from a position of empathy, build long-term, two-way, trusting relationships: this is the core of his position – impact comes from a relational approach to working in and around our research
4) Ensure that research design includes early impact
5) Ensure that research design includes reflection on (and learning from) the project, and also that elements of the impact plan are sustainable.
Then, related to these principles there is a series of steps to effective impact, one linked to each principle – so we’re encouraged to have a sense of what impact looks like, to plan for it, to declutter by getting rid of hindrances and distractions, to be specific about what and who in relation to impact and finally continuously monitor. By this stage Reed has outlined a clear vision of what high impact research looks like and started us on the path to building it into our research projects. The substantial body of the second part of the book is then working through a set of tools and research approaches and actions to help us achieve that goal.
Throughout, the book is packed with sensible, pragmatic and practical advice, hints, tools and techniques. Reed challenges us to complete particular activities that help lay the basis for ensuring research design that builds in impact and sets up mechanisms to allow us to achieve that goal: some of these turned out to be difficult. There is a bunch of things that Reed does on the way to this advice that I really appreciate:
1) He doesn’t assume he knows all the answers, so the advice is grounded in his practice as well as the growing body of scholarly literature relating to research practice
2) He recognises that disciplinary conventions and practices mean that not only do we do things differently, but that ‘impact’ is likely to mean different things and certainly will be assessed differently
3) He makes clear that is we want to be effective in our impact we can’t pick and choose what we do, we have to go on all fronts – at least at the outset – while recognising that exactly what we do will vary markedly from project to project
4) He is clear that impediments to successful impact can be fairly easily addressed by a strategic use of options (oh, and more than a little discipline)
5) Crucially, he is explicit that limiting discussions and analysis to instrumental approaches to impact is utterly invalid
In part I really like many of these because as an historian I really struggle to see how instrumental impact can have any place in my work (aside from a very small number of technical areas), while at the same time having worked as a historian in a tightly focussed government policy and negotiations unit I am also well aware that my work can have a very specific set of impacts. Part of me really relishes the prospect of writing policy briefings based in my work; in some respects it’d be a great challenge.
Based in Reed’s practice in his own scholarly work, in his consultancy and advisory work as well as a corpus of scholarly literature, this is essential for all researchers. It’s certainly demanding, but if we use it well we’ll be able to slough off a whole bunch of poor work practices and build a much more effective set of community and public engagements. The only annoying thing (aside from some presentational irregularities) is that when the next national research review (aka Research Excellence Framework) comes around, there is a good chance that everyone else will have read this and have much better impact statements.
July 19, 2017
I'll make use of the practical tips.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews