Welcome to Real World Impact

We kicked off 2018 by asking what impact resolutions all of us could make to improve the level of real world impact made from research. Dr Julie Bayley, Health Psychologist at Coventry University and the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) Impact Champion, gave her suggestions for changes that could be made to enhance the impact of your research and achievable goals to work towards – real the full blog contribution here: In 2018 I will #TakeTheLeap by... We expanded on Julie’s thoughts by asking for your opinions with our polls on Twitter.  The top answers as voted for by you were: Make research impactful beyond academia Increase co creation Make research more accessible to non-academics Don’t treat impact as a bolt on Be clearer about how our work benefits the world around us Can you incorporate these five changes into your work through 2018 and beyond? These results tie in with areas that Julie highlighted in her blog post: “By...

Climate change is increasingly having a direct impact on those in rural areas who rely on the climate for their income and livelihoods. Will high-polluting countries accept these peoples as climate change refugees? Kathryn Hardwick Franco, Doctor of Education Candidate Flinders University, shares her thoughts on how research on the impact of climate change on rural communities can be used to make real world changes. Real World Impact, Climate Change, Rural School Principal  My focus  My research investigates the role of the rural school principal. Important to the work of these people is the health of country communities. This health, typically, relies on weather for the success of major industries because rural communities rely on income from primary industries including aquaculture and agriculture. These industries rely on climate. Climate Change matters to rural schools and in turn, rural school principals. Rural matters The OECD note [1]  that agriculture ...

Dr Julie Bayley is a Health Psychologist at Coventry University and the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) Impact Champion, winning that coveted award for excelling above all others in ‘supporting the translation of research into societal impact’. In this blog, Julie sets out her own impact resolutions for 2018 - and advises how you might 'take the leap' to enhance the impact of your research… In 2018 I will #taketheleap by committing to support professional development of the impact community What will be the main theme and discussion points when talking about ‘impact’ in 2018? Impact discussions are at different stages around the world. For the UK and those involved in assessment, discussions are already narrowing towards impending submissions deadlines (eg. REF 2021). Efforts will focus increasingly on amplifying impacts and documenting them for stronger case studies. This both helps sharpen the detail of impact discussions, yet filters out dis...

Brexit and the real world impact debate: some reflections on the role of social sciences For academics, Brexit brings up difficult issues in terms of whether one’s role is merely to observe and comment on the process as it unfolds, or to explicitly argue for or against it, says Professor Alex De Ruyter, Director of the Centre for Brexit Studies at Birmingham City University…  Since becoming Director of the Centre for Brexit Studies at Birmingham City University - the UK’s first ever research centre devoted to the study of all things Brexit - I have found it challenging to keep my academic hat of ‘objective aloofness’ on. After all, Brexit will heavily influence the future trajectory of the UK’s economic and social relationship to Europe and the rest of the world. And, of course, we cannot forget the comment by Michael Gove during the lead-up to the referendum in June 2016 about how he thought the country had “had enough of experts”. Such comments might seem...