Pathways to 50 Shades of Grey

The basement of Death Star House
(Photo by Víctor Jesús Carrasco)

The news that the Pathways to Impact attachment was being dropped from Research Council applications was met with disbelief this week. But the true reason for the change is far stranger than anyone imagined...

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Impact: the Trouble with Quantifiable Objectives

Stiffle that yawn at the back! And do stop staring out of the window, Simpkins...

Yes, it's time to turn our attention to Impact once again. This time it's prompted by the always excellent Athene Donald who wrote on her blog about the need to be more specific in your 'Pathways to Impact' attachment. It's not good enough to claim that during your project 'the applicants will also be involved in visits to local schools to give lectures on a wide variety of topics relating to…..[this grant],' but how many visits? To which schools? Better to say something more quantifiable, such as

• 'I will talk about my work at 3 secondary schools each year during the course of the grant; or
• I will present my work annually at the local Science Festival.'

Well, up to a point, Lord Cooper. Almost as interesting as the article itself are the comments that come afterwards. Some of these are written by scientists who make the valid point that it's difficult to pin down public engagement in such a 'SMART' way. 'Its hard to quantify the take up by schools in advance,' says Paul Crowther, and, even if you do get into the schools, the quality of interaction is not a given. 'It is quite possible for some people to go into a school, give a talk and completely baffle the children. So just counting the number of contacts is not necessarily very helpful – it’s the quality of that contact that matters,' suggests Stephen.

Fair point, counters Athene, but really the point of the quantifiable impact objectives is to demonstrate that the applicant has actually thought seriously about impact. 'When I read these statements I want to gain some conviction that the writer has actually expended a few minutes thought on them,' she says, 'and too often that isn’t the case.

'Of course we all know why. We hone the case for support, and then often are rushed to do all the other attachments and boxes on the form. We’ve all been there. Nevertheless, it is this sense of recycled waffle that is so dispiriting when reading a pile of applications in quick succession.'

Stephen Moss mentions a RAND report entitled 'Project Retrosight' that looked back on the effect that selected pieces of research have had on the wider world. 'What I kept asking myself as I read the document was, ‘how much of this could have been forecast by the applicants at the time they submitted their proposals’?' muses Stephen. 'Whatever the answer, the content did provide me with several useful ideas for the impact sections of my own recent RC grant application.'

'Maybe Pathways to Impact is just going through some teething problems,' suggests Girl, Interrupting, 'and all of this will get sorted out in the future.'

Maybe. But I won't hold my breath. In the meantime do have a read of Athene's Blog, which is always honest, open, engaging and interesting.

Impact: a Scientist Speaks

A great blog entry from Athene Donald, Professor of Physics at Cambridge. She's currently Chair of Committee C of the BBSRC, so has seen a few Pathways to Impact statements in her time. She knows how vague and aspirational most of them are. 'Whatever it is they are going to do,' she says, 'it will solve all the ills of mankind, revolutionise the production of something or other and allow us to fly to the moon. This is not really helpful.'

Instead, applicants should focus on the quantifiable. 'Surprisingly often a committee member will want to know about the economics,' says Donald. What is thi size of the problem? How many people suffer from the disease you will cure? What is the potential size of the market? Do some background research, and give some figures. Similarly, for outreach work, be explicit about exactly how many schools you hope to visit, how many public lectures you hope to give, how many articles you will write for the general public.
Finally, don't make the mistake of resting on your laurels and talking about how many patents you've secured in the past. Look to the future and explain what you're going to do, and how past experience might facilitate it.

She finishes by asking you to take pity on weary panellists.

'You should consider that I and my colleagues will have read dozens of these statements over a rather short period of time in the run-up to the committee meeting, so have some thought that just maybe my eyes glaze over when faced with yet another page of statements along the lines of:

This proposal aims to develop new functionalities of [insert generic technology here] to support the next generation [insert protocol here] which will transform the production of [insert your favourite molecule here]. We will concentrate, just as we always have, on writing lots of peer-reviewed papers and travelling the world to exotic places to talk to our friends at high level conferences.

Do please take a few minutes and read her blog entry in full. It could make or break your Research Council application.

Impact Brainstorm

With many staff now returning after the summer break, I thought it would be good to re-start the ‘Impact Brainstorm’ sessions that we began last year. So every two weeks representatives from Research Services, Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE), and the Media Office will get together to ‘brainstorm’ impact for individual academics.

If you are struggling to think how your research meets the Government’s impact agenda, particularly if you’re preparing an application to the Research Councils, we can help. Let me know what research you are doing or are planning to do and we’ll come up with some ideas for potential beneficiaries, audiences, markets or applications.

We’re meeting on Thursday 9 September. You don’t have to attend: just drop me a line (by the today, preferably) with some details of your research, and I’ll get back to you after the meeting with some notes on avenues to explore.

Advice on the 'Pathways to Impact' Section of JeS

We recently ran a workshop on preparing the 'Pathways to Impact' section of the JeS form. Here are some notes drafted by my colleague Jacqueline Aldridge on the most important points to come out of this.

• Don’t wait until the end of the application process to design your impact activity – it should be integral to the project.
• You need to be very specific and concrete – named contacts in named organisations make your plan look credible.
• Stick to appropriate and achievable aims for your impact statement.
• Vague or grandiose indications of possible impact are liable to be ignored. Try to avoid the ‘oh yeah?’ response.
• This attachment is now called ‘Pathways to Impact’ so you need to plot exactly how you will take your findings from academic to other communities and how far along this pathway you will get within the life of this project.
• Every impact plan talks about workshops, press releases, websites – bring yours to life with project-specific detail
• Consider what you will do if the project findings are not what you expect.
• Specify which project resources will be devoted to this project (costs for a seminar, a proportion of PI/postdoc time).

Thanks to Jacqueline for these.