These case studies highlight where researchers have worked with partners in the
third sector which includes charities, voluntary organisations, community groups
and social enterprises. Engaging such stakeholders in research, will help ensure
it has greater relevance and generate impact for society and the economy.
Professor Irene Hardill: is Director of
the Northumbria Centre for Civil Society and Citizenship.
Her research has sought to understand volunteer
motivation and the role of volunteers in voluntary
and community sector organisations. Integral to
achieving impact and also opening up new research
opportunities is engaging with users such as the
Disability Rights Commission and Age UK. Coverage
by the media from an ESRC press release has also
opened up new opportunities.
Professor Cathy Pharoah: is from the ESRC
Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP).
Stakeholder engagement with policy and practice
is at the heart of the centre’s objectives and CGAP
has worked hard to develop a national and international
network of relationships. Part of the centre’s desired
long term impact is to identify and to demonstrate
to charities, big and small, how good research can
benefit them
Professor Rhodri Williams: from the University
of Swansea changed the direction of his research
from the rheology of industrial engineering fluids
to rheology of blood coagulation through a chance
meeting. As a result, Swansea is now seen as a world-leading
centre in this field and him and his colleagues
have two spin-out two companies, and are having
a clinical impact in local hospitals. He now regularly
engages with a wide variety of users including the
general public, as the feedback he receives from
them has been invaluable to his research.
Professor Nicky Gregson: Professor Nicky Gregson at Durham
University never anticipated that research into waste and global
recycling could produce such creative and innovative pathways to
impact which has led to the making of two films, a photography exhibition
and a school play. Professor Gregson was keen to explore a variety
of pathways to impact and together with her team, the Geographical
Association, as well as a ship breaking project team began working
with a Sheffield school and took a group of children to ship breaking
in progress. Unintentionally the children became part of a parallel
research project based on the poignant and revealing interviews
conducted by the school children with the veterans of the ship that
was being salvaged.
Professor Tom Sorell: Professor Tom Sorrell at the University
of Birmingham is a philosopher working with an economist and a social
policy researcher. He emphasises how important it is to think about
different audiences and how to reach them. He explains that he has
recently enlisted the help of an impact fellow who will be exclusively
dedicated to building networks and facilitating knowledge exchange
between the research team and end-users. Professor Sorrel believes
that philosophy should engage with people’s lives and knows that
mixing philosophy with policy has the best chance of having an impact;
he hopes that by using an impact fellow he can greatly magnify that
impact.
Professor John Wolffe and Professor Arthur Burns: Professor
John Wolffe and Professor Arthur Burns pondered how to make historical
research relevant to today’s society. In partnership with the Anglican
Diocese of London and Lambeth Palace Library, they have developed
an on-line resource to help parish clergy and lay people research
their own church history. Professor Wolffe stresses the importance
of taking a flexible approach to pathways to impact and has been
gratified that as a result of his research, he has received further
funding to extend his engagement activities to other places of worship
in London.
Dr Stephen Cavers: Dr Steven Cavers at the NERC centre for
Ecology and Hydrology led a project studying the process of evolution
in pine trees native to the UK, which aims to help commercial growers
produce stronger, more resilient varieties of pine trees. Dr Cavers
has established contacts with Forest Research, the Forestry Commission’s
research arm, which communicates with a wide national network of
tree planters to understand what research stakeholders consider
important; he has also implemented a skills development plan to
improve the communication skills of the project researchers and
to proactively create opportunities to interact with end users.
John Methven: Mr John Methven’s project at the University
of Reading aims to improve the reliability of weather predictions
in the tropics. Mr Methven believes that building the time commitment
of an experienced KE facilitator into the proposal helps to make
the delivery of impact activities more efficient and effective.
Mr Methven has found that thinking about pathways to impact has
changed the way in which his research is designed and helps him
to think about how to communicate with stakeholders and to a wider
audience. As a result, the MET Office and the European Centre for
Medium-Range Weather Forecasting are now official project partners,
speeding up the utilization of the new theory to improve weather
forecasting models in the tropics.