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Dimensions of research impact
Core concepts to help with planning and writing about impact
Whether you are planning for impact or writing about your impact in a funding application, three concepts are central to the understanding of research impact: Causality, evidence, and reach and significance.
Key takeaways
Causality means establishing a clear link between your research and the impact.
You will need to show evidence of impact, as well as evidence of causality where possible.
When communicating your research impact you will describe its reach and significance
Reach includes the types of beneficiaries, amount benefiting, and geographic span of the impact.
Significance includes the impact's importance or degree of change.
Read time: 4 min
Causality
Notice that the phrase ‘research impact’ constrains impact to that which is produced by research. It seems exceedingly obvious, but what it points to is the importance of a causal connection between an impact and the research that led to it – something that can at times be surprisingly difficult to prove. This causal connection is often described in terms of a pathway to impact.
Evidence
We have described how the most common usage of ‘research impact’ internationally is: benefits beyond academia that have occurred in the past. We should modify this to demonstrable benefits. It’s one thing to claim that your research had a certain impact, quite another to prove it. But what kinds of evidence ‘count’ if you’re writing about your track record of impact? And how much evidence do you need to provide? You can find answers to these questions in Evidence of impact.
Understanding different types of evidence can also help you if you’re developing an impact strategy and planning ahead for impact. You want to have a plan for what evidence you need to collect as your project and research progresses, rather than trying to dig it up retrospectively when you have a grant due!
Reach and significance
Impact is often understood, and often assessed, in terms of two dimensions – essentially breadth and depth – sometimes called reach and significance:
- Reach: The extent or spread of the impact, both in terms of who or what benefited and how geographically widespread the benefit was.
- Significance: The degree or intensity of the impact – i.e. how much difference the impact made, or how much it changed or improved things.
Understanding reach and significance is important to help you effectively plan, track, and write about your impact.
Reach
Reach is the extent or spread of the impact. Typical ways to think about reach include: beneficiary types, amount benefiting, and the geographic span of the benefits.
It is tempting to imagine that high impact means with wide reach, but that isn't necessarily the case. Your impact does not need to have had wide reach for it to be valuable. Improving something for one target group or in one local area can still be very significant and impactful.
(1) Beneficiary types
When you describe your work’s impact you’ll need to explain who or what benefited. These are the ‘beneficiaries'. Sometimes you might have more than one type of beneficiary.
Who are the beneficiaries (or potential beneficiaries) of your research? Try to think as broadly as possible.
Examples
Real world impact |
Academic impact |
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(2) Amount benefiting
For each beneficiary type, you can consider the amount and/or proportion benefiting.
Are you able to quanitfy this for your research impact? If not, and if you think it would be meaningful to do so, what data might you need to collect to make this possible?
Examples
Real world impact |
Academic impact |
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(3) Span of benefits
For impact beyond academia, you can also consider the geographic span and/or diversity of benefits and beneficiaries across locales.
Examples
Real world impact |
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Significance
Significance is how much the impact has mattered, or changed things. Significance can be quantitative – (such as the degree of the change or benefit) or qualitative (why it matters to the beneficiaries; the importance):
(1) Importance of the change or benefit
The more you can credibly argue that the changes or benefits brought about by your work made a substantial difference to the beneficiaries, the better.
For impact beyond academia as well as academic impact, this could involve describing:
- Why the problem itself matters
- How or why the adoption of your work is beneficial
- Additionally, for academic impact: How your findings have advanced the field.
(2) Degree of change or benefit
For some impacts, it’s possible to quantify the degree to which change has taken place or the degree of benefit. This is particularly common in the case of real world impacts. To do this, you’ll generally need a baseline before and after adoption of your research.