Abstract
How to successfully create impact from academic research is the focus of much debate. Discussions often centres on the role of discipline, researcher skills and behaviour, or institutional systems to capture impact evidence, but little consideration is given to the relationship between research impact and the research environment.
 Focussing on the Impact Case Studies submitted to Unit of Assessment 34: Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory, this research used Content and Narrative Analysis to review a sample of the most and least successful Impact submissions as ranked by Times Higher Education. The aim was to identify the characteristics of high-scoring Impact Case Studies to inform strategies for supporting the generation of research impact, but what emerged was evidence of a nuanced relationship between research environment and research impact.
 For Research and Management Practitioners, these findings highlight a need to extend beyond the development of training, advice and databases and respond directly to the core purpose and ethos of research impact. This can be achieved through the cultivation of an open, flexible and dynamic research environment capable of responding to institutional and researcher needs in order to allow impact to flourish.
Highlights
The introduction of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF2014) Impact Assessment presented a number of challenges for the UK Higher Education sector, including how to define, demonstrate and support the generation of research impact: “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (HEFCE, 2011)
There has been significant focus on the effects impact assessment may have on theoretical research; the skills researchers may have to adopt; the usefulness of metrics, altmetrics and databases to capture research impact; and the development of toolkits to help academics translate their research findings to audiences beyond academia
In terms of research impact, Art and Design research may appear to sit outside of ‘the norm’, in that it is often applied or practice-based and can be characterised as designed to engage with research users or audiences. Whilst this lends itself to the development of research for the benefit of users beyond academia, many of the same issues relating to Impact Assessment still exist, such as attributing impact, capturing and evidencing impact, and researchers feeling they lack the skills to exploit the impact of their findings
Summary
What does it really take to deliver research impact? Does the answer lie in the nature of the research? In the skills or behaviours of the researchers? Or the success of the systems in place to capture impact activity?The introduction of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF2014) Impact Assessment presented a number of challenges for the UK Higher Education sector, including how to define, demonstrate and support the generation of research impact: “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (HEFCE, 2011).From Savage’s experience as a Research Manager in a School of Art and Design, the questions highlighted above are often the focus of debates between academics and between academics and research support staff when the impact agenda comes under discussion. In terms of research impact, Art and Design research may appear to sit outside of ‘the norm’, in that it is often applied or practice-based and can be characterised as designed to engage with research users or audiences Whilst this lends itself to the development of research for the benefit of users beyond academia, many of the same issues relating to Impact Assessment still exist, such as attributing impact, capturing and evidencing impact, and researchers feeling they lack the skills to exploit the impact of their findings. This led to the development of Savage’s Professional Doctoratei study, which aims to develop effective strategies for supporting Art and Design researchers to demonstrate the impact of their research. This led to the development of Savage’s Professional Doctoratei study, which aims to develop effective strategies for supporting Art and Design researchers to demonstrate the impact of their research. (Professional doctorates are PhD-level research qualifications that focus on a specific professional context whilst contributing more broadly to professional practice.) The study was initiated following REF2014, firstly in response to assumptions in the sector that it was easier to demonstrate research impact for Design disciplines than Fine Art, and secondly due to concerns raised by academic staff about how to demonstrate impact; concerns that echoed those raised by the wider academic community
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