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APHCRI round-table with Professor Huw Davies

11 November 2005, Canberra
Ellen McIntyre & Barbara Beacham, PHC RIS

Understanding and assessing non-academic research impact was the topic of a round table discussion with presenter Professor Huw Davies (Centre for Public Policy and Management, University of St Andrews ). Non-academic research impact focuses on linking research-based knowledge with political and professional environments and the wider society. Professor Davies presented the main findings of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) symposium on assessing the non-academic impact:

• different types of research lead to different types of knowledge
• the non-academic impacts of research-based knowledge can include better informed policy, improved decision making, different ways of thinking about problems and improved understanding
• research can have non-academic impacts via various mechanisms
• context plays an important role in facilitating or inhibiting research impact
• the assessment of non-academic research impacts can be facilitated by considering realistic impacts, clarifying how impacts are likely to be made, developing measurable outcomes, mapping potential users of research and their interactions with research and researchers, developing testimonies of the impacts of research and creating panels of experts to assess the impact of research
• multidimensional measures of impact will be needed, including qualitative case studies.

The full report is available at: http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~ruru