Hello everyone
There's lots going on this month with the launch of my new book and lots of great new events and activities you can get involved with from Fast Track Impact as well as lots of other impact resources and opportunities from across the sector...
New from Fast Track Impact
My new book, Impact Culture comes out on Friday! If you'd like to watch the launch event live on YouTube, which will run as a reading group discussion, reserve 9.00-10.00 UK on the 25th March and put this joining link in your diary: https://youtu.be/mWHGlbhpH5o. Find out more about the book, join the impact culture mailing list and sign up for free impact culture training and discussion groups.
The next event in our impact culture series is a discussion in which you're invited to bring your examples of impacts that went wrong, sharing how we avoided disaster or what we learned from the experience. The session is introduced and chaired by Dr Gemma Derrick from University of Bristol, who has written extensively about what she describes as "Grimpact". Book your place now or find out about other free impact culture events.
Book your place on the Health Resilient Researcher course, open to all researchers. This four hour course will be held online on the 5th of May 2022 (from 11.00-15.00). Start your journey to health resilience and greater wellbeing at work and beyond. Making lifestyle changes will improve your work-life balance, reduce work related stress, and improve research curiosity and motivation. Secure your place today for £120 (reduced fee for PhD students) - includes one hour follow-up drop-in session for all participants after a month to give you the support you need to make lasting changes. We are also running this as an internal training course for institutions - if you want to integrate this into your graduate school or staff training programme for 2022, find out more here.
"Self-compassion is brave and powerful, and most of all it works." - Dr Joyce Reed in her new blog about how self-compassion can transform your resilience and confidence as a researcher.
There are loads of new episodes you might enjoy on the Fast Track Impact podcast, which this season is focussed on impact culture. This week, I'm interviewing Jonathan Grant about his new book, The New Power University. Listen to all nine episodes so far here.
We read 70 impact strategies from across the globe – we found only two different strategies. New blog by Saskia Gent and I based on our analysis of impact strategies - see full pre-print paper here.
Read my latest leadership blog: Empathic leaders need to be experts at finding expertise
Colleagues in Australia can now buy all my books direct from the publisher (sorry it has taken till now to make these available in your country!): https://www.fasttrackimpact.com/books
Research on impact
How does data drive impact? My new paper with Prof Eric Jensen and Dr Paul Wong analyses REF2014 case studies to show how data analysis and curation drove impacts in policy and practice by improving institutional processes, software and methods
What works to promote research-policy engagement? New paper by Prof Kathryn Oliver and colleagues
New research by Dr Ohid Yaqub and colleagues shows that 76% of impact plans communicated to funders in grant applications achieved their impact goals, based on those that could be paired with #REF2014 case studies
New study shows that for every unit of increased knowledge translation activity (on a scale of 0-8), there was a 30% increase in health research impact. Conclusion: invest in more targeted engagement with the people we want to benefit from our research
Shifting public engagement online can change the balance of people in your audience. New paper by Eric Jensen and colleagues, "'How does moving public engagement w/ research online change audience diversity? Comparing inclusion indicators for 2019/2020 European Researchers’ night events"
New open access book: Making research matter - steps to impact for health care researchers by Tara Lamont
“Robust impact evaluation can reveal the effective science communication approaches that should be extended or the ineffective methods that need to be stopped or adjusted.” Prof Eric Jensen in his new paper on using technology to narrow the gap between science communication, research and practice
"The point of evaluation should not be to prove impact; it should be to evaluate the effects, if any, of a given intervention. All kinds of results, whether positive, negative or no impact proof, are useful for enhancing practice.” Prof Eric Jensen in his new paper on highlighting the value of impact evaluation
Nice new paper by Dr James Shaw and colleagues on advancing the impact of critical qualitative research on policy, practice and science building on a paper by Dr Ruth Machen, which she blogged about for Fast Track Impact a few years ago - check out her blog on Research Impact and Critical Research: Reclaiming Impact on Critical Terms
What Works to Promote Academic-Policy Engagement - now open access
Evaluating researcher and stakeholder perspectives on socially responsible research and innovation practices in research performing organisations. New paper by Prof Eric Jensen and Lars Lorenz
Other resources
Bella Reichard from University of Durham is reviewing Impact Culture in detail, every day this week on Twitter - get her latest reflections here
A new way to synthesise evidence for policy for a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional systematic review, while giving Early Career Researchers a skill, paper and impact. Find out more about the residential training course I helped deliver to help ECRs get research into policy with Gavin Stewart (Newcastle University), N8 AgriFood and Policy Leeds, which I've written about in Impact Culture.
This website turns your abstract into something a Primary 2 kid could understand. Try it out https://tldrpapers.com
Emerald Publishing have blogged about their seven most common impact myths
Is your impact on your CV? This scientist has put her own research journey under the microscope to demonstrate how she tracks the impact her research, hoping that it inspires others to do the same. You might also be interested in my blog about How to make an infographic CV featuring impact that you can submit with your next grant application
Add a graph/figure or screenshot of your abstract when you tweet your next paper to increase the perceived credibility of your message. New LSE impact blog by Clara Boothby
Nice example of an impact theory of change being used to plan and evaluate impact by the LGB IOS Centre
Other impact training and events
Evaluating impact with surveys - online course with Methods for Change 30th March: book here. I do a lot of work with Eric (see our latest co-authored papers above) and can highly recommend his work on impact evaluation.
I've also tried and can highly recommend Saskia Walcott's new Impact Integrators online course - you can try module 1 free and its a great way to upskill your team with everything they need to generate more impact, whatever their discipline or career stage.
Evaluation Masterclasses in April and May by Jamie Gallagher: explore the planning and delivery of high-quality evaluation. Develop ways to listen, learn, improve, and report on any public engagement project.
Tell your impact story in a way that goes far beyond numbers. Join research impact expert Dr Sarah Morton's online workshop series to discover a more powerful way to articulate and evidence your impact.
Podcast episodes you might have missed
Building impact capacity: hear about my new pre-print with
Saskia Gent and colleagues and loads of other ideas to build skills, resources and learning capacity
Finding your impact community. Discover new ways to identify stakeholders and build social capital so you can team up with people who want to see the same changes you want
Purpose for a healthy impact culture. Why researchers need coaches and practical ideas to help you prioritise impact, including a preview of a chapter from the Impact Culture audiobook
The research that underpins your impact culture. Hear more about how you can use evidence synthesis training for ECRs to drive policy impacts, based on a project funded by Policy Leeds and N8 AgriFood with Dr Gavin Stewart (Newcastle University)
Staying resilient in the transition back to in-person work. I'm joined by my wife Joyce in the podcast this week (a bit of a long term ambition!), talking about how she helps researchers practice self-compassion to improve their health and resilience
Extreme co-production. If you REALLY want to coproduce research you need to interrogate your assumptions and you may not be comfortable with what you find. I found evidence of white centering, helicopter research and epistemic racism in my former work. I want to do better and I'm starting here...
5 lessons to co-produce impact when you have limited time. Listen to my top 5 lessons for co-producing impact with limited time, based on my forthcoming book, Impact Culture
What is your impact culture? In this first episode of Season 4 I discuss why we need to think harder about the culture in which we do our work, and unpack what a healthy impact culture looks like.
I hope you've found something useful in this newsletter - if you think others would benefit from future emails, they can subscribe here. And just hit "reply" and get in touch if there's anything in the newsletter you'd like to discuss with me - I love hearing from people! I'll be in touch again on Friday once Impact Culture is released...
Have a great week till then,
Mark
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CEO Fast Track Impact
www.profmarkreed.com
Tel. 07538082343
Find me on Twitter and LinkedIn
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