Fundermentals Top Ten of 2017

As we stumble towards the end of 2017, our heads spinning with fake news and fake news about fake news, it's time to look back and think: well, we've got Trump and May, but at least Fundermentals is still doing lookalikes.

Yes, readers, the world may be a bizarre place at the moment but there are certain things you can rely on. And so, as 2017 shudders to a halt, we take a look back at what's tickled your fancy in the year of covfefe.

'The Productive Researcher' by Prof Mark Reed: a Review

Prof Mark Reed

One of the most common reasons that academics give for not applying for grants is a lack of time. Buffeted and battered between the thousand competing demands of modern academia, grant writing always seems to come a poor 562nd.

And yet some manage it. It’s this mystery that Prof Mark Reed sought to resolve in his new book, The Productive Researcher. To do so, he ‘reached out to the world’s most productive researchers...and asked them how they did what they do. Their answers and the answers that emerged from my reading, both confirmed and extended my thinking.’

At this point I can picture many of you arching an eyebrow and imagining that the answer lies with teams of postdocs and some very understanding spouses. But for Reed it’s both far simpler and far harder. For him it is, as it was for TS Eliot in ‘Little Gidding’, ‘a condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything).’

Because the productive researcher needs to strip everything back to their prime motivating force. Why did they started in academia in the first place? It is only ‘by understanding why - really why - you are a researcher [that] you can become increasingly aware of the motives that lie behind your motives.’  And only when you understand these can you start to properly prioritise your workload.

The Three Rules of Impact

The Award Winning Julie Bayley

Two years ago we held the first of our 'Maximising Impact' events. Shortly after, we invited the Award Winning Julie Bayley (Coventry) to talk us about 'what works' when it comes to impact. Julie has a refreshingly open and approachable take on impact, and listening to her speak gives hope to all who are confused and intimidated by impact.

Last Wednesday we held the second 'Maximising Impact' event, and it made sense to have Julie speak to us again. This time she built on what she'd said before by setting out three basic rules of impact.

Impacting Parliament: Giving MPs the Information They Need

 In the second of her guest posts, the University's Impact and Engagement Officer, Maddy Bell, shares some notes on what academics should bear in mind when working with Parliament.

Parliament is actively seeking external input to make informed decisions based on sound evidence. But MPs are under huge pressure – working long hours with limited opportunity to absorb key information. Given this, academics can play a crucial role in providing them with the knowledge and understanding they need to make better policy. 

At the end of last year I attended an event run by the Houses of Parliament Universities Programme that outlined the ways in which academics can engage.  Here I summarise these, and the potential impact your research can have from working with Parliament.

Finding Partners outside of Academia

Wednesday 14^th Dec, 2pm

Canterbury Campus, Room TBC

Working with those beyond academia has become increasingly important in recent years: forming strong, productive links with non-academics helps to develop, inform and disseminate your research. But how should you identify suitable partners, and how can you make sure that your relationship is mutually beneficial, long-lasting and sustainable? This session will be led by Janine Coomber and Kimm Sutter from Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE). KIE is the sister service to Research Services, and provides help and support in forging links outside of the University to exploit the findings of your research.

How to Write a 4* Article

Prof Mark Reed

Last week Prof Mark Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and the man behind Fast Track Impact, tweeted some thoughts on how to write a 4* paper for the REF. Here he explains his thinking in more detail.

_____________

How do you write a 4* paper for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)? It is a question I’ve asked myself with some urgency since the Stern Review shredded my REF submission by not allowing me to bring my papers with me this year to my new position at Newcastle University.

Obviously the answer is going to differ depending on your discipline, but I think there are a few simple things that everyone can do to maximize their chances of getting a top graded research output.

Empathy for Impact

Maddy Bell.
Or possibly Carrie Bradshaw

Maddy Bell joined the University of Kent in December 2015 in the new role of Impact & Engagement Officer in Research Services, after 6 years supporting academic clinicians at the Royal College of Anaesthetists in London.

In this debut blog post, she reflects on the past 7 months in her role and considers the important role of empathy in achieving impact in research, and in her own role at Kent.

When I first considered the idea of blogging, it took me back to the ponderings of Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw and her infamous column philosophising over relationships. Head balanced on my fist, gazing out of my window onto some cosmopolitan hustle and bustle, swish laptop open and contemplative pout at the ready. 

As it goes in reality, if I turn my head to an uncomfortable 90 degrees, my glance is met with the breeze block mass that is Cornwallis, and on the grass in-between, the remains of a furry animal apparently having met a dramatic end. My keyboard is scattered with mystery crumbs and the odd green tea splash.

That aside, the University of Kent in summer is the perfect place for pondering and contemplation. In the relative quiet and calm on campus following the end of term, I find myself reflecting on the last 7 months since my appointment as Impact & Engagement Officer in Research Services. Reflection, I believe, is how we learn and get better at being our best. My overarching aim at Kent is to add value; to have my own impact here and to engage colleagues in these agendas.

Research Impact and Parliament

My colleague Jacqueline Aldridge, co-author of The Research Funding Toolkit, attended a recent event hosted by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST), which gave academic researchers an insight into how they can best contribute to the parliamentary process. 

Jacqueline kindly agreed to summarise the main points that arose from the day. Huge thanks to her for doing so, and do get in touch if you any questions arising from these.

Impact: What Works?

The Award-Winning
Julie Bayley

Whilst impact has become an accepted fixture on the research landscape since it was introduced by the Research Councils in 2008, there is still a nervousness about what it is and how it should be recorded.

Fortunately help is at hand: Julie Bayley has developed a national reputation in supporting colleagues in understanding impact at Coventry University, and she accepted our invitation to come to Kent and talk about her experiences.

Fundermental Top 10 of 2013

It's that time of year, isn't it? Never mind peace on Earth and goodwill to all: give us your lists! What have you been watching? What have you been reading? Where have you gone? What have you eaten?

So, in the spirit of the season, here are the ten most read posts on the blog this year. It's like a mix tape of the best bits, and a reminder of what we've all been thinking about this year.

1. Notes from OA Forum (January). I can't believe it's been almost a year since we held this event.

   

   No. 1: OA Forum

   2013 is the year that Open Access became mainstream, when we consulted on and drafted an OA Policy. This was part of the process, and maybe its popularity came from many people being in the same boat, trying to work out exactly what they were going to do about OA.
2. Thinking Imaginatively about Impact (May). Although OA has dominated people's minds (after the REF, natch), Impact continues to have a hold. Kevin Parker of KKI

   

   No. 2: Impact

   Associates came and spoke about how to be creative with interpreting impact. Inspiring.
3. EPSRC Bingo (October). Whilst Fundermentals is meant to inform with notes on meetings such as those on OA and Impact above, it's also meant to be a way of sharing frustrations - hopefully with a bit of humour. This came from reading one policy document too many.
4. Essential Elements of a Good Application (November). A write up of a Grants Factory event this year. We brought together four academics who have had experience of the BBSRC, ESRC, AHRC and EPSRC, and it was a really useful panel session. 

   

   No. 4: Essential Elements

5. AHRC: View from the Committee Room (February). I've taken part in a couple of AHRC training events this year, to talk about what we do at Kent with internal peer review. This post was writing up the hints and tips of one of the other speakers, Prof Roberta Mock of Plymouth University.
6. H2020: Where We're at (July). As well as the growth of OA, we've all been keeping a weather eye on the development of the new European funding programme, Horizon 2020. This was an overview of the developments mid-year, after coming

   

   No. 6: H2020

   back from the EARMA Conference in Vienna.
7. Meanwhile, in Moscow Airport (July). Another bit of silliness. In the summer all eyes were on Moscow Airport as whistleblower Edward Snowden fled American authorities. I couldn't help but see certain similarities between him and the Times Higher's own Phil Baty...

   

   No. 8: Recycling

8. Recycling your Proposal (May). A write up from last year's Grants Factory. The low success rates of the research funding process means that applicants need to think about what to do if their bid fails. Here's some ideas.
9. Balancing the Conflicting Demands of Academia (June). Last year we launched the Early Career Researcher Network. These were the notes from a really useful session, at which many shared their experiences, and learnt from each other.

   

   No. 9: Balancing

10. Introduction to Open Access (June). So the list ends as it began: with OA. This was six months after the OA Forum, when we stopped to take breath, gather our thoughts, and try and distill what OA is all about.

Thanks to you all for reading the blog this year. If you have any thoughts or ideas on things that should be covered in 2014, drop me a line.

Thinking Imaginatively about Impact: Transistors, Mini-Skirts & Global Warming

Parker: yes, m'lady

Whilst 'impact' has been part of the funding landscape for some time now, it is still something that we get a lot of confused (or bemused) enquiries about. Many see it as a ridiculous demand: their work is so theoretical as to have no real word impact and, even if it did, how can they possibly predict what it will be?

Last week Kevin Parker of KKI Associates gave a talk to try to demystify impact. Usefully, he encouraged the audience to distinguish the 'features' of their research from its 'benefits'. He gave the example of Exxon's development, in the mid 1990s, of credit card payment systems at petrol pumps. In order to make this happen, Exxon needed to do a huge amount of research and development, including electronic systems to read credit cards that would not create a current or a spark that could ignite the petrol fumes. Did they dwell on all this cutting edge technology when talking to the public about it? No. They talked about the fact that the new system would allow stressed out parents to get home in time for their children to watch Barney the Dinosaur. That was the real world impact of their research.

For Parker, there were essentially four possible benefits that academics could identify:

• It allows us to do new things: for instance, when the first transistor radio was developed it stuck rigidly to the valve radio template: large, lumpy, mains powered. It was only when Sony miniaturised it and made it battery powered and affordable that it really took off, giving teenagers the chance to listen to their own music wherever they wanted. 
• It saves us money: in the past Parker had worked with someone who had developed a new lathe. The lathe had many 'features', including hydraulics, but what sold it to car manufacturers was that it would save them money by cutting out one part of the production process.
• It makes life easier: Are people doing something difficult, dirty or unpleasant, can you help them out? For instance a scanner that allows doctors to better diagnose cancer, and avoids unnecessary interventions, or architecture that is designed to make a working environment more efficient. 
• It makes us think differently about ourselves: whether it be Darwin changing how we understand our position in the natural world, Einstein our place in the universe, or historians our place in time, the public is genuinely interested in understanding how we fit with our environment, and how we view ourselves. Another example was the miniskirt and original Mini: both were adopted more because they made people feel good - or differently - about themselves rather than because they were practical, or even because they were innovative products.

The ultimate test of a successful impact claim is whether it can be delivered as an 'elevator pitch'. Could you say, in a couple of minutes, what makes your research special and why people should care? 

We're hoping to get Kevin back to talk again in the new year, but in the meantime a version of Kevin's talk is available on his website, here.

The Difficulty of Impact

Definitely not David Sweeney

The LSE'Future of Impact' conference yesterday had a valedictory feel. It was the last huzzah for ‘The Impact of Social Sciences’, a HEFCE-funded project which had sought to 'develop precise methods for measuring and evaluating the impact of research in the public sphere.' 

Whilst they have achieved a lot – their blog is a fantastic forum for discussing issues relating to impact, for example – I think even their fiercest admirers would be hard pressed to say they had succeeded in this.

That’s not necessary their fault. Rather, it's the inevitable consquence of grapling with the amorphous, shape-shifting beast that is impact. This was particularly apparent in the third session yesterday, ‘Next Steps in Assessing Impact,’ which saw the three speakers almost come to blows over what impact is, who wants it, why, and how fast. This was partly down to the ever-entertaining David Sweeney, the architect of the REF. Like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding, he can always be relied upon to speak his mind. Loudly.

He took issue with the previous speaker, Julia Lane, who had been talking about StarMetrics. I’ve spoken about this before on this blog. To me, it sounds like an eminently sensible system (although I don’t think she did it justice here); Sweeney, however, begged to differ. Not only did he think that academia should not snap to attention when governments ask for data, but he implied that the system was only partially successful at collecting the right information. 

Similarly, he turned on the third speaker, Cameron Neylon. Neylon had suggested that Twitter could be used to monitor and engage with users of academic research. He gave an example of South African research which had been retweeted by someone working in community health promotion. ‘That’s not impact’, said Sweeney, dismissively.

And therein lies the problem. Here were three eminent speakers working at the coal face of impact. And yet, between them, they couldn’t reach agreement on what constituted impact, or why we should be doing it. If they have problems defining impact, what hope is there for the rest of us?  

RCUK Publishes Impact Case Studies

Last week RCUK published impact case studies. The intention of this was, I think, twofold: to highlight to external bodies (such as the Treasury) that public money is being well spent, and to highlight to potential applicants examples of best practice. Having read them all now I feel that they might have succeed at the latter, but not necessarily the former. Which is a shame, as I do think that it's crucial to make the case for the importance of research to government and the wider world.

The case studies are split into four categories: ‘policy’,‘business’, ‘public engagement’ and ‘voluntary and charitable’. Some appear in more than one category. RCUK had a huge pool of projects to choose from for their fourteen examples. The Research Councils give out grants for some 2,500 projects each year.As such, you would expect them to be spectacular examples of their kind, but I wasn't convinced.

Unsurprisingly, the business-related ones have the clearest impact and it is easy to make the case with these: licensing agreements, patents, and new technology with applications that will benefit society. All good. Things become a bit less clear in the other three categories which, to my mind, are somewhat weaker. Or rather, I think it’s very difficult to make the case. Many talk about ‘stakeholder engagement’, which of course is good, and of feeding into the development of policies and working practices. Which is also good. Others talk about their tweets and blogs, their public lectures and even their jazz compositions. Okay, so I know it's very hard to try and quantify the effect that these activities have had, but I would have thought that RCUK might have been able to provide more hard evidence as to the effect their funded research is having on society.

Nevertheless, I think the positive that potential applicants should take from this is that expectations are low and broad. If you can demonstrate that you are able and willing to engage with end users, to talk to school children and put on public events, then you will easily have met the expectations of your future paymasters. And, you never know, with your conceptual art spin-offs and children’s books sub-projects, you could well be up there on the RCUK website in years to come.

Impact: the Wellcome View

I went along to the ESRC Seminar Series on Impact at UCL yesterday. It was a very interesting event, and wasn’t what I had feared: either an evangelical sermon by the funders, or a diatribe by academics. Instead, we were presented with four different takes on impact: the first, from the Wellcome Trust, the second from the American funder the National Science Foundation (NSF), the third from the Netherlands on research assessment, and fourth from the coal face by a practising scientist. I’ll cover two of these – the Wellcome Trust and NSF – in this and the next post.

The Wellcome Trust spends £650m per year, roughly equivalent to the MRC. Liz Allen, the Senior Evaluator Adviser at the Trust, outlined the challenges faced and tools used in understanding and quantifying the effect of this funding.

Wellcome, of course, does not have to justify itself to government; however, it does have a duty to report to the Charity Commission, which gives it tax breaks, and to understand what does and doesn’t work.

She highlighted a number of challenges in assessing impact in the biosciences:

• the time frame involved: for instance, it took Robert Edwards 18 years from first developing the technique for IVF to the first successful ‘test tube baby’
• the serendipity of science: for instance, Alec Jeffreys has been quoted as saying ‘our discovery of DNA fingerprinting was of course totally accidental...but at least we had the sense to realise what we had stumbled upon.’
• Attribution and contribution: there is often a long and diverse list of people and organisations involved in the evolution of a piece of research. For instance, John Todd had funding from Wellcome, MRC, JDRF and NIH. In addition, there is the ‘ripple effect’, the value of negative findings, and the ‘counter factual’ question: what would have happened if x didn’t discover y?

So pinning down impact is not easy. However, Allen, who was keen on quotes, quoted Charles Babbage: ‘errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.’ It’s better to do something with limited data than to do nothing at all. Wellcome’s attempt to ‘do something’ includes:

• Understanding impact in terms of ‘progress’ rather than ‘success’;
• With this in mind, the Trust looks for traditional indicators of progress, including: publications, people and training, products and interventions, software and databases, engagement with communities, policy, advocacy and influence, funding, and awards and prizes.
• In addition, it has explored ‘new’ indicators, such as article-level metrics (through software such as PLoS), post-publication peer review (such as F1000), clinical guidelines (NICE has recently digitised all citations used for clinical guidelines, and the Trust can check who has been involved), and the separate contributions of all members of a research team (via the ORCID initiative).
• The Trust is also making use of ‘softer’ indicators, such as case studies. However, it recognises the dangers inherent in this. Allen once again turned to another quote, this time from John Allen Clements: ‘when you ask the memory to reconstruct daily events from forty years ago, you’ve got to be appropriately cautious.’ The Trust needed to make the award winners know what it might be interested in right from the start, so that they can note and monitor it.
• Wellcome Trust Career Checker. This is a recent development, and aims to track the career choices and progression of cohorts of individuals after their funding has finished. What have they gone on to do?

Allen finished by highlighting the work that others had done in trying to quantify the effect that medical research had had. The Lasker Foundation had commissioned research that suggested that it had had a 20 fold return, so that for every $1 spent there was $2.17 in health benefits. A similar report in the UK showed that ‘for every £1 of public money invested in cardiovascular disease and mental health research, a stream of benefits is produced equivalent ot earning 39p and 37p respectively each year in perpetuity.’

Which is quite compelling. Sure, assessing the effect of biomedical research is a tough call, but Allen rounded off with a quote from Mary Lasker: ‘if you think research is expensive, try disease.’

REF: a Few Thoughts on Drafting Impact Case Studies

I took part in an interesting workshop on REF impact case studies yesterday. We were looking at some initial drafts and, whilst there were some great ideas about possible impact, there were a few key points to bear in mind when thinking about your case study.

• There has to be a strong link between the impact and the research upon which it is based. It's not enough to be working generally in that area; you need to highlight the project, and the findings of the project, and make clear how these led on to the resultant impact.
• The research has to have been undertaken whilst you were at the University. It's fine if it began elsewhere, but at least part of it has to have happened after you arrived at Kent;
• It helps to have quantifiable indicators of impact. Whilst HEFCE define impact very broadly (note their definition in the checklist here), it will help you to objectively demonstrate your impact if you are able to show some figures to back up your claims.
• The impact has to have happened already. Unlike RCUK's understanding of impact, HEFCE's is backward looking. It's past, not potential. You have to be describing impact that has already been felt.
• It is better to write in the third person. This adds to the sense of an objective, impersonal analysis of the impact (as does having quantifiables, see above), which will help give your case study substance and credibility.

If you're working on your case study, do have a look at the checklist that my colleague Clair Thrower has prepared. If you would like some feedback on your draft, do get in touch with her directly.

REF: the Plot Thickens

With the publication of the panel assessment criteria last week, we now have a clearer idea of what the REF is going to look like. And it's not a level playing field for all the panels. Research Professional did a good run down of how it differs between each, and here it is, in summary:

The Thorny Issue of Citations

Remember when the REF was just a glimmer in David Sweeney's eye? When all the talk was of bibliometrics and light touch review? Hah! Well, as we've known for some time, you can forget all that. The REF looks pretty much like it's the RAE with Impact, and is peer review-centric. In fact, citations are only going to be allowed in a minority of the 36 sub-panels, as follows:

• Panel A (Life Sciences): will allow citation data in all sub-panels;
• Panel B (Physical Sciences): will only allow citation data in sub-panels 7 (earth and environmental sciences), 8 (chemistry), 9 (physical sciences) and 11 (computer science)
• Panel C (Social Sciences): will only allow citation data in (some of) sub-panels 17 (geography, environmental studies and archaeology) and 18 (economics and econometrics). No panels will use journal impact factors.
• Panel D (Humanities): no citation data allowed.

Put Out by Outputs

As well as variation on citations, there's a wide variety on what's deemed acceptable as assessable outputs. 'RePro' (as no-one but me calls Research Professional) gives the example of the physical sciences vs life sciences. Life sciences are strictly 'old skool', and you can only include 'edgy' outputs like textbooks, databases or abstracts “exceptionally”, 'where they embody original research'. The physical sciences, on the other hand, are much more 'new wave', and you can submit patents, book chapters, computer algorithms and software as evidence of research output, alongside peer-reviewed publications.

The Impact of Impact

Finally, it's our old friend Impact. Generally there's a broadbrush consensus on what impact is all about, and the definition is wide enough to allow for a fairly catholic understanding of it. However, there is a minor spat in the offing when it comes to the impact of teaching. Within Panel B, research impact can include actions that have an effect on teaching or students where they extend significantly beyond your institution. However Panel C will not accept such heresy, and you can't include examples of this in your submission to them.

So, interesting times ahead. Thanks to - ahem - 'RePro' for their overview of the HEFCE docs. You can have your say on them by responding to HEFCE's consultation before 5 October.

Statement on Impact: Why?

HEFCE, RCUK and UUK have issued a joint statement on the joys of impact. Like Cameron's take on the UK/US relationship, things have moved from being 'special' to being 'essential.'

The statement is all a bit, well, yadda, yadda, yadda: 'committed to working together', 'embedding througout', 'engage with business', 'beneficial outcomes', 'continue to work together', 'work coherently together' etc etc

But why did the three august institutions feel the need at this time to issue a generic statement that says almost nothing? It might have something to do with the REF: the Guidance on Submissions was published on the 14th July, and it's clear (if you were at all uncertain) how important impact is going to be this time around. Still, that doesn't really explain the reason for such a statement.

To me, it has the feel of whistling in the dark, to ward off the unbelievers and dissenters, of repeating something over and over, sotto voce, to reassure yourself that what you know is right, right? and what you believe will prevail. But something like this often has an opposite effect: it makes you think, 'why are they telling me this? Do they know something I don't?'

So beyond whistling in the dark, what's the point? I'd love to know. If you work for HEFCE, RCUK or UUK do drop me a line explaining the background to the statement. Alternatively, if you don't work for any of these three wise monkeys, just guess. The more conspiratorial the better. They'll be a prize for the best of a superb non-flashing pen, crafted from pure transparent plastic with colour coded lid and end stopper detailing.

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.

Are Friends Electr(on)ic?

The MRC has announced that it will be using the Joint Electronic Submission System (JeS) from now on. The other Research Councils have been using it for some time. Medical researchers may be unsure whether to break out the champagne or the black crepe. Whilst the MRC's own EAA system was far from perfect, JeS does have a habit of bewildering and confusing newcomers. All those sections! All those attachments! Do get in touch if you want a quick tour through the system. Once you get used to it the advantages do begin to become apparent, such as the facility for sharing your application with others.

Incidentally, I was interested to read about Impact in the MRC's announcement. Some of you will remember that the MRC was, at best, agnostic about the merits of predicting the impact of its research. Indeed, one very senior MRC officer once described impact to me as 'bullsh*t'. To them, the impact of their funded research was part of their raison d'etre, and having to explain it beforehand was almost demeaning.

Well, now that they're part of the JeS congregation they have to sing from the same hymn sheet, however much the words stick in their throats. In somewhat cool terms they describe themselves as being part of 'an RCUK project' that would 'encourage researchers to be actively involved in thinking about who could benefit from their research.' Makes the whole impact agenda sound a little like an intriguing play thing, a tentative pilot project that probably won't come to anything. Not the hoop-jumping administrative behemoth it's been for the rest of us for the last couple of years.

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.