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• Research Impact Guidance
• • What is research impact?
  • Where to start
  • Impact and funder requirements
  • Collect and store evidence
  • Researcher Perspectives and Advice

Collect and store evidence

Once you’ve started your project, impact rarely happens as a result of a single piece of research or one engagement event. This section of our toolkit looks at how you can collect evidence of research impact so that it doesn’t become overwhelming. Evidence is the data and testimony that supports claims of what has changed for the beneficiaries of your research.

Collecting evidence of research impact is useful for reporting back to funders, for preparing impact case studies and also for promoting your research to broader audiences.

Introduction

Capturing impact means identifying and recording information about the difference that your research has made.

You need to be able to establish:

• What has changed as a result of your research
• How that change can be partially or (less often) wholly attributed to your research

As impact mostly lies with external partners, it is important to be able to get information from them on how they have used your research.

Capturing impact should ideally be an ongoing process throughout your research project rather than being left to the end. Building a simple process for recording information into your work routine will help you build an impact narrative.

There is often a lot going on in a researcher’s work life, so a good starting point is to make a note of impact-related information that comes up in discussion with partners or any external stakeholders and the context in which the interaction is taking place. For example, at the start of a project, a partner might share how they think they might be able to use your findings. This can be a starting point for you to note down a lead to check again later in the project.

Types of evidence

There are different types of impact evidence, which can loosely be split into three categories:

Documentation: this can include any reference to your research in documentation that can show influence on or changes to guidance, legislation, regulation, policies, practices, processes, standards, protocols, or related decision-making and outcomes. Or also any evidence of the use of your research in policy or public debates through citations in parliamentary processes, via Hansard, committee reports or policy documents.

Testimonial: these are statements that can corroborate your specific impact claims, provided by key users and beneficiaries of your research to show what you have contributed and its impact.

Quantitative: these are measures of change that can show how your research has led to a tangible change or benefit. These might include measures of improved performance, productivity, sales or cost-effectiveness; improved patient outcomes; improved social equality, welfare, inclusion, or employment etc.; or enhanced awareness, understanding, attitude and behaviour change.

(From Panel Criteria and working methods: Annex A p77+)

A claim of impact is often at its strongest when you can combine these different types of evidence to corroborate each other. For example, a citation of research in parliamentary processes could be strengthened by a testimonial from people you worked with in the process to show that your research was (at least in part) linked to a change in policy.

What to collect

• Pathway to impact (activity): record the range of activities and processes that have contributed or led to impact. 'Activities' could be conferences and workshops (hosting and attending), outreach (e.g. in Schools), invited talks or keynote speeches, board membership, secondments. 
• Beneficiaries involved: make a note of all the individuals and organisations you have met and worked with or those who accessed and possibly responded your research. Where possible, add job titles.
• Links: for example, for a Board membership make a note of how the invitation came about; for publications (reports, briefings etc) make a note of any contact triggered by dissemination (e.g. if someone e-mailed you with comments or to initiate contact); for secondments make a note of how the opportunity came up in the first place and of the aim of the secondment.
• Insights on interest, relevance and use of research from collaborators: the key question here is what the research user has done differently as a result of accessing and using your research. If, for example, the Board of an organisation you are a member of has informed or changed their strategy on an issue based on your research or, if someone has considered your publication in their work and has written to let you know it is worth noting this down.
• Reach: to show how widely the impact has been felt (e.g. locally, internationally) and/or how many people have been affected it is important to record numbers where you have them (e.g. like Twitter statistics, downloads of a software, views of an article). You can use tools such as Altmetric to help you gather this information.
• Citations: note citations of your work in policy or other documents
• Testimonials: quotes, e-mails and any acknowledgement (e.g. in a book or on a website) that describes how your research has been valuable to external partners and speaks to the significance of your work is often crucial evidence of impact.
• Feedback: depending on the nature of your project you might opt to collect qualitative or quantitative feedback that describes the impact of your research. This could come from a variety of methods including questionnaires, post-event interviews, focus groups, case studies, or surveys.
• Quantitative measures: as mentioned above, any quantitative measures that can show the benefit of your research.
• Remind yourself to follow-up: a piece of research may have been well-received without any distinct piece of evidence of impact. Adding reminders for contact in the future and doing whatever you can now (e.g. connecting with someone who has expressed an interest in your research on social media) is useful as the record grows and the opportunity to pursue further may only arise in the future.

Challenges

Timescales: the long timescales of impact can present some potential challenges with evidence gathering, specifically that it can be difficult to gather evidence retrospectively. It is much more feasible to gather questionnaire responses immediately after an event or ask for a testimonial while everything is fresh in the mind rather than looking back and asking a few years later.

As you develop your impact plan and plan your activities, keep asking yourself what indicators you will need to evidence the impact of these activities: what methods and techniques do you need to gather them? What resources do you need?

Attribution: it can seem difficult to prove that your research resulted in. It is worth remembering that your research can be a significant contributor factor to an impact amongst many others. You do not have to have large impact claims that your research was the sole factor in leading to a change (though in some cases it might be). The evidence you collect can be commensurate with your claim of impact and show that your research, even if just in part, contributed to a change or benefit.

Where to store your evidence

The impact module of Elements is where you can deposit all of your different types of impact data and evidence, and have it stored in one place. As Elements also stores your output and grant data, you are also able to track how your emerging indicators of impact connect to your research which will help you in developing your narrative of impact.

Take a look at the Library guide on how to use the impact module of Elements.