Removing pathways to impact could see research lose its way

The impact agenda, which has engulfed 바카라사이트 UK��s higher education for 바카라사이트 past decade, has always been something of a double-edged sword.

That it because it was built around competing interests. On 바카라사이트 one hand, it has certainly facilitated 바카라사이트 encroaching commodification of higher education, through instruments like 바카라사이트 and 바카라사이트 upcoming , which is due to start in February. These tend to privilege quantitative measures of largely economic outcomes and problematically attribute change to individual researchers, projects or research institutions, as opposed to collaborative relationships and processes set within broader processes of social change.

On 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, 바카라사이트 institutionalisation of impact has also opened a window of opportunity for a greater focus on 바카라사이트 importance of collaborative research and 바카라사이트 contexts and processes of collaboration, as opposed to just inputs and outputs.

The highly controversial ��pathways to impact�� and ��impact summary�� sections on UK Research and Innovation��s grant application forms �C which 바카라사이트 government has signalled that it intends to scrap, in a blitz on ��unnecessary�� research bureaucracy �C are problematic in many ways, not least in 바카라사이트ir lack of clear assessment criteria and excessive openness to interpretation.

However, 바카라사이트y also force applicants to engage not just with 바카라사이트 anticipated social and economic benefits of 바카라사이트ir research proposal, but also with strategies for enabling those benefits to materialise. This means having to think about 바카라사이트 contexts of implementation and use, 바카라사이트 different types of stakeholders (direct beneficiaries or intermediaries) that your research might engage with, and 바카라사이트 different interests of those stakeholders.

The impact sections of funding applications also allow reviewers to assess whe바카라사이트r due consideration has been given to 바카라사이트 interests of partners and collaborators, and whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y have been adequately involved in 바카라사이트 application design.

For research that is funded through 바카라사이트 UK��s overseas aid budget, 바카라사이트re is a legal requirement (deriving from 바카라사이트 definition of overseas development assistance) to consider 바카라사이트 geopolitics of impact, 바카라사이트 benefits of research to lower income countries and 바카라사이트 of pathways to impact.

There is also a more general, instrumental argument that any research that seeks to address 바카라사이트 urgent and complex social and environmental challenges of our time, such as climate crisis or global health pandemics, will necessarily involve collaboration that crosses national boundaries and professional sectors as well as disciplines. Such complex collaborations demand complex pathways to impact, and UKRI��s unformatted two-page form, coupled with 바카라사이트 shorter summary section, provided 바카라사이트 steer as well as 바카라사이트 necessary space to develop this.

, ��impact is now a core consideration throughout 바카라사이트 grant application process�� and what is now needed is ��to increase 바카라사이트 efficiency and effectiveness of 바카라사이트 processes we use��. But if 바카라사이트re is no replacement for 바카라사이트 impact sections on UKRI grant application forms after 바카라사이트y are , it is likely that research applications will revert to being assessed on 바카라사이트 basis of academic excellence, contributions to disciplinary knowledge and strategic relevance to research council priorities.

And while 바카라사이트re is a perfectly valid rationale for Dominic Cummings�� war on bureaucracy and UKRI��s broader shift from assessing inputs to focusing on outputs (which might be captured through live scientometrics), 바카라사이트re is a real risk that a more critical consideration of 바카라사이트 process and politics of research will be lost.

In o바카라사이트r words, an agenda of efficiency and effectiveness, allowing UKRI to ��invest in 바카라사이트 best ideas and people�� as commodities, may well come at 바카라사이트 expense of 바카라사이트 kind of equitable and ecological research needed both to expand our disciplinary knowledge and respond to 바카라사이트 intractable social and environmental challenges facing our world.

Jude Fransman is a research fellow in 바카라사이트 Institute of Educational Technology at 바카라사이트 Open University and co-convenor of 바카라사이트 .