‘Impact’ has catapulted to stardom in the academic world in recent years – it’s the word on everyone’s lips, the tune everyone’s singing. But what does it really mean, and to whom?
Read time: 2 min
In the broadest sense, ‘impact’ means the benefits or positive changes that have resulted, or may result, from your research.
These benefits might be for the field (impact within academia) or for the 'real world'. Impact can also be retrospective (has already happened) or prospective (might happen in the future). We unpack these nuances below.
Probably the most common usage of ‘research impact’ internationally is: benefits beyond academia that have already happened. Although this definition is often used in Australia, others are too depending on the context.
Watch the video to learn more.
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Whether your research impacts the academy or the 'real world' is the biggest distinction in research impact. Everyone should have some impact within academia, but only some people will have impact beyond academia. The likelihood of this will depend on your discipline, the disciplines you collaborate with, your career stage, and how translational your work is by nature.
Benefits for research and other academics. This might mean significant advances in knowledge for the field, new methodologies created, or your work being used by other researchers.
Also called: Academic impact; Knowledge impact.
Benefits arising outside of research; often considered under broad categories such as economy, health, environment, society, culture, depending on the nature of the impact.
Also called: Real world impact; Societal impact.
Remember that impacts come in all shapes and sizes, and it takes time for research to be taken up and used by others and the downstream benefits realised. This is especially true for real world impact.
Another way to classify impact is in terms of its chronology - that is, whether it has happened already or whether it is anticipated future impact. Typically, when people talk about research impact they are referring to retrospective impact.
These are benefits that have already happened, such as the uptake of your research findings, or changes that have flowed from that. You should be able to identify it, and evidence it. This type of impact commonly forms part of your track record in funding or prize applications.
This is the potential impact that might occur in the future as a result of your work. This type of impact is what is described in the ‘benefits’ or ‘significance’ sections of a research funding proposal, for example.
