Research Impact: Coming to a funder near you.

“Research impact is the demonstrable contribution that research makes to the economy, society, culture, national security, public policy or services, health, the environment, or quality of life, beyond contribution to academia.”

Australian Research Council (ARC) definition.

Non-academic research impact has become the hot topic of the last ten or more years. The UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) was the largest research evaluation exercise of its kind anywhere in the world; it assessed universities by “the quality of research outputs, the vitality of the research environment and, for the first time, the wider impact of research”. REF 2014 created over 6600 case studies to demonstrate the impact that the research studies provided. The REF was an interesting exercise that if nothing else raised the awareness of non-academic impact and likely altered the culture of the research faculty. It highlighted multidisciplinary research, that created multiple and varying impacts simultaneously, and the international involvement of UK research with every country in the world. Data mining of the case studies has found that different types of universities specialise in different types of impacts. Larger universities contributed to impact topics such as clinical guidance and dentistry while the smaller universities were more specialised in sport, arts and culture.

In November 2015 the Australian Government published a Review of Research Policy and Funding Arrangements. The review was undertaken by Ian Watt, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and concluded that given the investment made in Australia’s Universities, high quality research alone is not enough and that our research must also have an impact on society. “Impact” and “engagement” were highlighted as areas where our emphasis should be increased alongside the current measures of research quality captured in the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) system.

The expectations of research to bring benefits to society has been increasing for some time and impact is now a standard element of funding in the European Union and South Africa.

Australia has lagged on creating funding mechanisms that drive greater research impact. Canada and the USA have had knowledge translation, the pathway to impact, embedded within their health and medical research funding programs for over 15 years with other nations not far behind.  

“Research impact doesn’t just happen; we need to create opportunities for it.”

Times they are a changing

The Australian Government has emphasised an increased level of engagement and impact of research in its innovation statement, with Prime Minister Turnbull wanting to end the "publish or perish" culture, and encourage universities to work more closely with the private sector.

 It is also interesting to note the many health and medical research funders, although not our biggest, now requiring a focus on translation and impact. Some examples are:

•  The Translational Research Grants Scheme (TRGS) – NSW Office for Health and Medical Research
• The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia
• The SHRAC Research Translation Projects – Western Australia Department of Health
• Telethon-Perth Children's Hospital Research Fund - Western Australia Department of Health
• QEMRF Research funding programs – Queensland Emergency Medicine Research Foundation
• Children’s Hospital Foundation Queensland
• Dementia Collaborative Research Centres

With the increasing emphasis on the societal benefits of research and research impact occurring across many funding sources, it is time to consider how you will plan for impact. How will you build a team to fulfil the planned activities, how will you develop non-academic partnerships for evidence transition, what is your budget for the cost of translation activities, and how will you deliver on these requirements within your research projects?

 What are you doing to plan for research impact?

• Tamika Heiden is the Founder and Principal of  Knowledge Translation Australia – a service that facilitates the movement of research knowledge into life. She works with researchers and research stakeholders to ensure their work is relevant, useful and useable so that it provides benefit and value to society.
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