Achieving Impact in Research: (Success in Research)

About the Book

This unique addition to the Success in Research series addresses the importance of understanding and achieving impact for the purposes of gaining research funding and reporting achieved impact for the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

The book includes contributions from researchers and researcher developers who feel that impact is ill-defined and poorly understood despite its prevalence in policy documents, websites and institutional activities. This succinct and cohesive text draws on the expert contributors' collective research practice, knowledge and experience.

Using a variety of examples, boxed activities and highlighted reflection points, this practical guide covers the following key areas:

• The meaning of impact in relation to research
• How the Impact Agenda fits with attitudes and ethics that motivate research
• The different characterisations of research impact and when impact is apparent
• How impact can be planned into proposals, evaluated and evidenced
• The skills needed to be an impactful researcher
• How impact can be supported through Knowledge Exchange and effective partnerships

This is a must-have guide for anyone seeking to understand and achieve impact in their own research.

The Success in Research series, from Cindy Becker and Pam Denicolo, provides short, authoritative and accessible guides on key areas of professional and research development.

Avoiding jargon and cutting to the chase of what you really need to know, these practical and supportive books cover a range of areas from presenting research to achieving impact, and from publishing journal articles to developing proposals. They are essential reading for any student or researcher interested in developing their skills and broadening their professional and methodological knowledge in an academic context.

Table of Contents:
What is the meaning of impact in relation to research and why does it matter? A view from inside academia - Colin Chandler What is the meaning of the Impact Agenda - is it a repackaged or a new entity? Views from inside the Research Councils - Sophie Payne-Gifford How does the Impact Agenda fit with attitudes and ethics that motivate research? - Jennifer Chubb What are the different characteristics of research impact? - Jo Lakey, Geoff Rodgers and Rosa Scoble When might research impact be apparent? - Christopher Wood How can impact be planned into research proposals? - Rob Daley and Sara Shinton How can impact evaluation be planned? - Tony Bromley and André de Campos How can impact be evidenced: practical methods? - Tony Bromley What skills are needed to be an impactful researcher? - Jennifer Chubb How can knowledge exchange support the development of impact through partnerships and university infrastructures? - Andy Jackson How can you become an impactful researcher? - Ellen Pearce and Pam Denicolo Appendix I A special case: researcher development and the work of the impact and evaluation group - Christopher Wood and Pam Denicolo Appendix II An illustration of the Researcher Development Framework (Vitae) Appendix III The pathways to impact framework provided by RCUK Glossary

About the Author :
Working across a range of disciplines (Psychology, Health & Social Care and Pharmacy), Pam Denicolo, a Professor Emerita from the University of Reading,  a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, has wide-ranging experience both of using a range of research approaches and methods and of teaching how to use them well to a broad range of students and professionals world-wide. She has served on executive boards and committees of national and international learned societies and organisations devoted to research and teaching. She continues to publish widely student support materials, books, and journal articles on research because she remains passionately committed to mentoring and coaching newer researchers and academics.

Review :

 

This book is a very important contribution in the ever-changing field of research, now facing a new paradigm-shift where impact in terms of making changes in society has been pointed out as an important issue. As there is a gap between producing breakthrough research results and inform about them in a way making it possible for society beyond academica to use the outcomes, this book is important to every researcher. To make difference as a researcher, in the sense of producing research results with impact, is a matter of articulating the results in an understandable and interesting way. This book is an answer to the questions we researchers have of how to cope with the new requirements and helps us in an excellent way to understand how to bridge the gap between our research results and how to disseminate them in a broader society than we usually do.

 

This book is both timely in its publication and of potential enormous benefit to HEI’s and academics as the emphasis in research in UK Universities and elsewhere shifts more and more towards the Impact of research and away from the Output of research.  The text is well separated into easy to read chapters dealing various aspects of the Impact Agenda and most chapters are planned is such a way as to pose questions to the reader which help them to reflect on their own particular situation. For this reason the book will be an invaluable asset to all HEI’s, Research Centres and Institutes, Graduate Schools and individual academics.

 

This is a book that both challenges your thinking about achieving impact in research while also providing helpful  practical support. The format of the book  guides you through the text providing practical tips and suggestions along the way. The integrated personal reflection points and activities embedded throughout are helpful in keeping you fully engaged with the subject. I can highly recommend this book to students, researchers and academics.

 

Achieving Impact in Research attempts both to define the impact agenda and its rationale and to provide general, targeted advice on how to engage with it. It is in this second aim that the book succeeds best. Much of the practical guidance is general enough in its approach to be relevant across disciplines but focused enough upon self-reflection and planning to be of tangible use. As such, I would recommend this book to those teaching research skills at an institutional and departmental level and also to early career researchers trying to understand impact and address it in research planning and implementation. [Achieving Impact in Research] argues that the impact agenda does not fundamentally alter the priorities and direction of UK research. The authors even present the impact agenda as a developmental process that helps bring researchers′ potential for non-academic influence into sharper focus. The soothing message of the different chapters is that the right skills, preparation and attitude help researchers create and evidence impact for a wide range of individual research projects.