Ross-Hellauer T, Tennant JP, Banelytė V, Gorogh E, Luzi D, Kraker P, et al. (2020) Ten simple rules for innovative dissemination of research. PLoS Comput Biol 16(4): e1007704. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007704
There are a number of free tools and templates to help with planning impact available at Fast Track Impact. In particular check out their templates.
Our Research provides a number of free tools to help with dissemination of research
Research Impact case studies are an effective way to tell a story. See some good .examples at UCD Research Portal
The Australian Research Council has defined research impact as
"Research impact is the demonstrable contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment and culture beyond the contribution to academic research” (Australian Research Council, 2017).
Research impacts on the world in two ways academic and societal. Academic impact means publications, citations, open access and peer review which all serve to disseminate scholarship and new knowledge. Societal impacts are the ways that society benefits from research such as better policies, health services, new products, new understanding of the world, societies and the people who live in them. So there are many, many ways research can have an impact and that is also why it is difficult to track and measure it. However, the key point is that you must have partners, or stakeholders, if your research is going to have impact – someone must take up and use your research and someone must benefit from ii. The more you involve your partners early on – even in the design stage of your project – the more impact your research is likely to have..
Beneficiaries are the people, groups, communities or countries who will benefit from the impact of your research. End Users are the groups, people or companies who will take up your research and use it to bring about change. Stakeholder means anybody who has a stake in the outcome of your research – perhaps because it will benefit them, or because they are involved in up-taking, using or translating the research into a real world outcomes. Co-production of research happens when researchers and end users of research work closely together to produce knowledge.
Researchers do not create or "do" impact. They engage in knowledge exchange activities that may result in the research having impact. You can only undertake activities that enable impact to happen. Impact will happen when other people take up and use your research so that something changes. However, increasingly funders will look for you to describe your "route to impact" in a funding proposal. These are the means by which you aim for your research to have impact. Seeing these activities as “routes to impact” implies you are planning them carefully as part of a sequence that you hope will lead ultimately to a concrete impact. However, be aware, your path to impact, just like your research, will change on the way.
