What do we really mean by research “impact”?

With the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) looming, UK Higher Education Institutions are consolidating information to form “impact case studies”. These are designed as a way of documenting how academic research has “impact” particularly beyond academia, such as informing policy, changing practice, or informing public debate. This is operationalised through understanding both the “reach” and “significance” of impact (HEFCE, 2017).

Clearly Psychology as a discipline is well suited in this regard as it is primarily focused on human thought and behaviour in society and as such, our research can potentially be hugely impactful for societal change. However, Psychology is a broad discipline and many areas of enquiry remain fundamentally theoretical. Indeed this is important as this work can be used alongside more applied areas to consider how these robust theoretical principles work in practice. So what is suitable research to constitute research impact in this discipline?

In my own Department, we have many areas of applied research such as; intervention work for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), visual search paradigms for supporting radiographers find cancer, and ways of measuring factors associated with substance use and misuse. Clearly all these are addressing societal concerns and could form suitable research to inform impact. However, the constraints of the REF mean that much of the “impact” of this work may not be fully captured for the purposes of being an impact case study. This can be due to a number of things, including the following:

1. For research to be classified as having wider impact it must be underpinned by scholarly work (e.g., peer-reviewed papers). Academic publications take time for many reasons including lengthy peer review and publication timelines and as such, this scholarly work may not be produced in time to underpin any impact activities which may have occurred in the meantime.

2. Often “impact” occurs before any scholarly work has taken place at all. For example, a researcher may be consulting with an external organisation and realise that they are doing something which “works” to make a positive change. At this stage, the researcher may wish to become fully immersed in working collaboratively with this organisation and do some empirical work to fully establish and validate the strategies being operationalised. In this case, the changes already observed have not been impacted by the research itself but instead, have informed the research. However, based on the criteria of the research having to underpin the impact activities, this does not constitute a case which would be considered relevant for an impact case study. This is potentially a missed opportunity.

3. The evidence needed to document “impact” can be challenging to capture or obtain at all. For example, how does one gain evidence that their research has changed public discourse of an issue? This may involve organising additional research activities or events specifically designed around garnering impact evidence which are both time-consuming and can take away the essence and authenticity of meaningful, impactful research. Particularly in light of this issue, take my own research as an illustrative example:

My collaborative project on how we form first impressions of others based on online behaviour, such as emoji use, has been ear-marked as a potential impact case study. The rationale suggested for this is that it may help inform public discourse around first impressions online. To note here, this research has received a vast amount of media attention both nationally and internationally as well as being a basis for many public engagement events. As such, this was considered to be useful to document the “reach” of impact. However, I remain sceptical of this. The primary evidence of impact is currently taking the form of Youtube “hits” and comments, and website views. This for me, is not capturing the essence of impactful research. I did not go into this research with the aim of having this impact, so this evidence is being garnered as an ad-hoc activity which to me does not align with my own assumptions about the purpose of this research. For me, for research to be purely “impactful”, the target user group or beneficiary (e.g., public, policy makers, clients etc) must be at the heart of the design of the research. That is, research objectives are designed specifically around the needs of this group or organisation and are involved directly in the whole process of the research work. In this way, researchers are working to have “impact” with the beneficiaries themselves and evidence is obtained in a meaningful and authentic way.

For my own research being considered as an impact case study, I keep asking myself; “so what?” So people now know that when they use a smiley emoji on Facebook, other people form certain impressions of them… so what?! It’s not akin to the work of my colleagues who may find ways of reducing alcohol misuse, ensuring COPD patients live longer and happier, or that radiographers find a way of detecting cancer more easily, so more people are successfully treated. From my perspective, their work is built primarily around making positive impacts for people and society, yet the attraction of my research with the media means that I have more evidence in place to potentially be an impact case study, despite the rhetoric of my research being further away from making an impact than colleagues’ work. Therein lies my issue with “impact” and how research assessment exercises such as the REF result in flawed and in some cases, misguided practices around doing and monitoring impactful research.

To offer some practical ideas, here are some critical questions to ask which can help researchers establish whether their research is purely “impactful” or not. In my opinion, an answer of “Yes” is needed for all of these for this to be a good example of impactful research:

· Can I identity a beneficiary of my research? (e.g., public, policy-makers, practitioners, service users, etc)

· Are the issues I am researching aligned to the needs of the beneficiary?

· Is my beneficiary involved in the research process (e.g., consulted on research objectives, methods of working, dissemination events)? That is, are they involved before or as the research is being done, and not just as an “add-on” for dissemination or solely as an impact activity?

As you can see, I take a sceptical approach to this issue. The purpose of this piece is simply to highlight the dichotomy which exists between research which is actually designed around making an impact (in the real and meaningful sense of the word) and that of research which is identified as “impact” purely from a pragmatic perspective of having evidence to form an impact case study. It remains to be seen what the final submission of impact case studies will look like in REF2021 but for the sake of ensuring we are upholding and representing the full potential of the Psychology discipline, let’s hope it showcases work which isn’t subjected to the question of “so what?!”