Impact is, at its simplest, benefit: the good that researchers do in the world. This guide answers four questions, from what impact actually is to what might be holding you back from creating it.
The simplest definition of research impact is benefit. Whenever you are unsure whether something counts, three questions cut through: what was the benefit, and who benefits, and how?
Put more fully, impact is the good that researchers do in the world. That phrasing carries a value judgement on purpose. Doing good also means a responsibility to anticipate and avoid the harm research can cause along the way.
“Research impact is the good that researchers do in the world.”
For a benefit to count as impact it must lie beyond academia. It can be direct or indirect: when your work enables someone else to create a benefit, you can share the credit, as long as the impact is clearly linked back to the research.
Impact is not only about creating beneficial change. Preventing harmful change counts too. Stopping something bad from happening can be just as valuable as making something good happen.
Impact is judged on two things: significance, how meaningful the benefit is to the people who experience it, and reach, how widely it is felt. The two do not always move together, and significance usually matters most. If you save one person’s life as a result of your research, you have clearly had a significant impact, however small the reach.
Start with achievable significance at a local scale. Extend reach once you have proven it works.
Impact has been defined as “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia”. Below are ten types it can take.
It is worth reading through every category, even when you are sure only one applies to your work. Scanning the full set is the best way to surface unintended co-benefits, the impacts you were not looking for.
When people understand something more fully, they are equipped to act on it. This is often a pathway to other kinds of impact rather than the end point itself.
Example · A public campaign that deepens understanding of antibiotic resistance, paving the way for behaviour change.
Research can move how groups of people feel about an issue, an institution or each other, in ways that can be measured before and after.
Example · A measurable reduction in prejudice toward a minority group following a targeted intervention.
Savings, costs avoided, productivity gains or new revenue. Often the easiest type to put a figure to, though not always the most significant.
Example · A new diagnostic that cuts treatment costs across an entire health system.
Benefits to the natural world, which frequently bring co-benefits for the people who depend on it.
Example · Restored peatland that locks up carbon, revives wildlife and protects downstream communities from flooding.
Improved physical, emotional, psychological or social outcomes for individuals and communities.
Example · A therapy programme that measurably improves recovery rates after surgery.
New or amended policy, regulation or governance. Research is usually one influence among many, so the link must be traced carefully.
Example · Evidence cited by a parliamentary committee that reshapes how an industry is regulated.
Shifts in what people decide and do that sit outside the other spheres listed here.
Example · A water-saving practice adopted by farmers across a whole region.
Changes in shared values, beliefs, narratives and patterns of behaviour across a culture or community.
Example · A national conversation that reframes how a community understands and values its own heritage.
Benefits to social groups that are not captured by the categories above.
Example · Solar micro-grids that give remote students reliable light to study by after dark.
Building capital, skills or resilience now so that benefit can be realised later. The impact is the readiness itself.
Example · Training a community network that can respond quickly when the next flood arrives.
Teaching and other educational impacts are deliberately left out of this typology, to keep the focus squarely on benefit beyond academia.
Every impact has the same precursor: learning. Data only becomes knowledge when someone learns from it, so impact depends on knowledge exchange, not one-way knowledge transfer.
Knowledge is exchanged, not transferred. Impact happens when people learn from each other, in both directions.
Every pathway is rooted in a specific context and must adapt as that context changes.
Impact can be bottom-up, led by the people seeking benefit, or top-down, led by a researcher or government.
Who is at the table matters. Partial or phased representation always has consequences.
The mode of engagement, from one-way out to genuinely joint creation.
Power dynamics make or break outcomes, depending on the process and how it is facilitated.
Five steps and forty-seven principles for effective knowledge exchange, mapped onto a single radial chart. Select a step to reveal its principles.
Researchers are trained to generate ideas, not to communicate or implement them. More often than not, the biggest obstacle to impact is the researcher themselves.
Few researchers are taught how to translate their work for the people who could use it. The skill can be learned, like any other.
Engaging external stakeholders can feel daunting. It rarely is once you start, and the relationships open doors you did not expect.
Impact is possible whatever you study, however unglamorous the topic. Even research on peat bogs has reshaped climate policy and restored landscapes. The work is not about how exciting the subject sounds. It is about building relationships, which tend to repay you in unexpected ways: new collaborations, new funding, new directions for the research itself.
It is worth being honest about the risks too. When impact becomes an incentive to chase, it can be gamed, it can pull quality down, and it can erode trust. The way through is to reconnect impact with the thing that should sit at its core: empathy. Caring about who benefits, and how.
“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles from it.”
Three routes onward, whether you want to read at your own pace, train with us, or watch the team work through it.
Dozens of practical, free guides on every stage of generating and evidencing impact, browsable by topic.
Browse the blogGo from understanding to doing, with structured training that fits how you want to learn.
A curated set of talks and short how-to videos, plus The Fast Track Impact Podcast with Prof Mark Reed and guests.
Thousands of researchers are working on their impact alongside us. Keep learning with the free 5-week program, live webinars and expert masterclasses.
Our best writing on research impact, plus the occasional course or event, a few times a month.
By subscribing, you agree to receive emails from Fast Track Impact. Unsubscribe anytime.
