Image: Rachel Magee for Research Professional News
Earma 2024: Despite its growing importance, measuring impact is “tricky”, conference hears
There is “no magic bullet” for providing evidence of research impact, the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators annual conference has heard.
The impact of research has been given increasing weight by funders in recent years, many of which now require academics to show the outcomes of their work for society.
But Saskia Walcott (pictured), a research impact consultant in the UK, told the Earma conference in Odense, Denmark, on 25 April that measuring impact is difficult to do despite its growing importance in academia.
“There is not a magic bullet to evidencing impact, I am sorry to say. I have been working in the impact space for 12 years now…I have spent a long time trying to find out, how do you evidence impact and how do you measure it? The fact of the matter is that it is kind of tricky,” she said.
Challenges and solutions
There are several challenges for research managers in supporting academics to show the impact of their work, Walcott said, such as a lack of time and budget.
In addition, methods for collecting evidence of impact are often not thought about until the end of the research project, Walcott added. She said there is also an issue around who keeps track of impact, given that it normally manifests once the research is complete.
Walcott told attendees that there are quantitative ways of measuring impact, such as through surveys and monitoring data, as well as qualitative ones such as through interviews and focus groups.
She said she is often “surprised” that most people immediately focus on numbers when talking about research impact. For her, the qualitative elements of measuring impact are also “important”.
“Don’t skimp on getting qualitative data,” she urged research managers.
“It can be the harder material to get but it is the material that will help…your impact story to have that heart and have that empathy that people can connect to.”