General resources to plan for impact

Engaging with research users can help to define the potential impact of your research beyond academia and identify steps for achieving this impact. Find resources here to learn how to plan for impactful research.

Questions to plan for research with impact

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help identify the potential impact of your research beyond academia, and the key partnerships and pathways that may help you get there:

1. What do I want my research to be doing in 10 years’ time? What difference do I want to make?
2. Who benefits from my research? What are their needs?
3. Who can facilitate the change? Are these different from the ones benefitting from my research?
4. What do I need from partners to achieve the potential impact? How can I navigate complimentary and conflicting ideas?
5. How and when will I connect with partners?
6. What methods will I use?
7. How will I know my research has made a difference? How will I measure this?

Edinburgh Research Office (ERO) Engagement for Impact Hub

ERO has compiled a suite of guides, toolkits and webinars to help you plan for research with impact. This includes:

• An ‘Impact basics’ webinar: which provides a comprehensive overview on impact beyond academia and why it has become increasingly important to funders
• A guide on how to build knowledge exchange and impact into research
• A guide on costing engagement and impact in funding applications

Engagement for Impact Hub (EASE login required)

How to build engagement and impact into research guide (EASE login required)

How to cost engagement and impact in funding applications guide (EASE login required)

Research Impact: Creating Meaning and Value

This online course covers the fundamentals of research impact – what it is and how it can be embedded in every step of the research journey.

Research Impact: Creating Meaning and Value identifies universal skills which are mapped to the research journey, rather than specific funding requirements or national impact assessment exercises. It is global in scope and employs real-world case studies, video interviews and inspiring stories from across all discipline areas and at different career stages. 

Research Impact: Creating Meaning and Value

Good research practice for impact

Good research practice ensures the research outputs you generate contribute to a positive impact on society. The Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences outline four principles for good evidence synthesis that focus on evidence that is inclusive, rigorous, accessible and transparent.

Principles for good evidence synthesis for policy (PDF)

Planning for international impact

Research undertaken abroad or with international partners can require additional planning to ensure a positive impact.

The theory of change approach helps you build a road map of what needs to happen in order to achieve the changes you want to see. This is particularly useful for international projects that may require critical thinking of the contextual conditions that influence the project as well as the motivations and contributions of different stakeholders.

Crafting your Pathways to Impact using a Theory of Change (EASE login required)

The University provide a toolkit to help find solutions to the ethical challenges of your research.  This toolkit informs and supports ethical choices in global research, particularly for research conducted in complex, low-income or fragile settings.

Ethical Action Global Research Toolkit

Forming impactful collaborations

Collaborating with different partners has a number of advantages, such as raising the profile of your research, creating funding opportunities, and broadening the scope of your work.

Develop your networking skills with the University’s ‘how to engage with external partners’ course. This course will help you approach potential partners and frame a collaboration opportunity.  This practical course is one of seven modules of the Engage online learning programme offered by Edinburgh Innovations.

Engage courses

You can also host collaborative events within the College to bring researchers together and spark a dialogue among interdisciplinary groups. For example, the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society MS Centre organised the MS Society Symposium, which you can read about in the blog linked below.

Grassroots collaboration: MS Society Symposium blog

In order to have impactful collaborations your events and meetings need to be inclusive and accessible. Learn ten top tips on planning for inclusive meetings:

So, you're new to research impact 

Blog post (Oct 2022) hosted on Research Whisperer collating a list of useful resources if you're new to research impact and to grow your impact literacy. 

So, you’re new to research impact?