Engaging with research impact assessment for an environmental science case study

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 4542 - 10
• Main Authors: Fryirs, Kirstie A., Brierley, Gary J., Dixon, Thom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 04-10-2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 704/172/4081; 706/648/496; Case studies; Councils; Culture; Embedded systems; Environmental assessment; Environmental impact; Environmental science; Funding; Higher education; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mapping; multidisciplinary; Perspective; R&D; Research & development; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Society
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12020-z

Impact assessment is embedded in many national and international research rating systems. Most applications use the Research Impact Pathway to track inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes of an invention or initiative to assess impact beyond scholarly contributions to an academic research field (i.e., benefits to environment, society, economy and culture). Existing approaches emphasise easy to attribute ‘hard’ impacts, and fail to include a range of ‘soft’ impacts that are less easy to attribute, yet are often a dominant part of the impact mix. Here, we develop an inclusive 3-part impact mapping approach. We demonstrate its application using an environmental initiative.
Existing approaches to research impact assessment fail to include a range of soft impacts. The authors present a 3-part impact mapping approach and apply it to an environmental initiative. They highlight that support for realising research impact is vital, and call on researchers to be open to new ideas and avenues for creating impact from their work.