{"id":46183,"date":"2018-12-04T02:28:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T10:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=46183"},"modified":"2018-12-04T02:28:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T10:28:49","slug":"the-measurement-tail-should-not-be-wagging-the-impact-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-measurement-tail-should-not-be-wagging-the-impact-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"The measurement tail should not be wagging the impact dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nAustralia\u2019s\u00a0Engagement and Impact Assessment\u00a0<\/a>encourages universities to ensure that their research is of benefit to the world beyond academia.<\/p>\n

Or does it?<\/p>\n

Having spent more than a year in a dedicated \u201cengagement and impact\u201d research support role, I am concerned to see that institutions tend to be narrowly focused on the task of\u00a0showing evidence<\/em>\u00a0of engagement and impact, rather than thinking about\u00a0what kind of impact\u00a0<\/em>their work might have and\u00a0what kinds of engagement\u00a0<\/em>would allow that to happen.<\/p>\n

This is problematic, because knowing what kind of impact is intended is a logically prior step to collecting evidence of it! If you don\u2019t know what you are aiming for, you can hardly hope to achieve it, much less document it.<\/p>\n

The focus on showing evidence is also problematic because it shifts attention away from\u00a0creating impact<\/em>, which is something grand, visionary and inspiring, towards creating only the kind of impact that is measurable \u2013 a smaller, more individualistic, and potentially less relevant endeavour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s the Engagement and Impact Assessment in Australia, the\u00a0Research Excellence Framework<\/a>\u00a0(REF) in the UK, or any similar exercises in other countries, the indicators that we are asked to report against are only ever going to be proxies for more complex real-world outcomes. The impact case studies that we are asked to provide are simplifications of more complex stories of how research creates societal benefit. A generic measurement system, designed to assess progress against a very high level goal, is never going to serve as a constructive guide for what an individual\u2019s engagement and impact goals should be.<\/p>\n

I would like to imagine a world in which the engagement and impact agenda motivates us to think more about having impact, and less about proving it.\u00a0 Here are three ideas for moving towards this vision.<\/p>\n

1. Researchers need to define impact for themselves.<\/h3>\n

Researchers need to look at the government\u2019s very high-level statements (e.g. \u201cimpact is the economic, environmental, social, and other benefits of research\u201d) and define what, specifically, is the impact that they are aiming for.<\/p>\n

If researchers are accustomed to thinking about the outcome of their research as being a publication, then they\u2019re going to get stuck. But if they start with the idea that the scholarly outcome of their work is \u201cnew knowledge\u201d, or \u201ca new perspective\u201d, then already the path to impact starts to open up. Researchers could consider:<\/p>\n