Impact from research can be defined as the ‘demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy’ (UKRI) and as ‘the effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’ (Research England, REF). This includes, not only benefits that your research can bring, but also the reduction or prevention of harm, risk, cost or other negative effects.
Essentially, impact is the change that your research brings to the world outside of academia and can occur in many ways such as creating and sharing new knowledge, inventing ground-breaking new products, developing new or improving existing public services and policy or enhancing quality of life and health.
Impact has been growing in importance over the past decade with it forming a compulsory part of grant applications for UKRI research councils since 2009. Impact was also included for the first REF in 2014 and therefore forms a key part in how research quality is analysed across universities and how research funding is awarded. This importance in REF has increased counting for 25% of the overall assessment in 2021.
Further reading on what research impact is can be found at: