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Be ambitious and involve end users in formulating research plans
You cannot approach the pathways as a tick box exercise. It has to be unique to your research and designed to achieve your ultimate aims. - Dr Gerald Roberts, Birkbeck University of London
“It appears to be quite common for researchers applying for grants to hope that their research plans are good enough to allow them to rely less on a well prepared pathway to impact,” says Dr Gerald Roberts. He speaks from experience as he sits on a NERC peer review panel. He has seen many grant applications, and has experience of unsuccessful applications himself. “Pathways to Impact statements can lack variety and often consider including the research-users almost as an afterthought.”
For his latest successful grant application, Dr Roberts took heed of his own observation and thought carefully about how he was going to maximise the impact of his research. For him, the most important element has been to develop the research idea and the grant application in close collaboration with the people who would help him conduct the research and who are also the people who will eventually apply the findings
The aim of his research project is to determine the dates of the last earthquakes across a region of central Italy. This information will test the hypothesis that long-elapsed times since earthquakes foretell of impending rupture. The hope is that understanding this issue will help emergency agencies to plan more effectively.
The project came about through a chance conversation with an earth scientist who makes hazard maps in Italy. She told Dr Roberts that in many areas they simply did not know when the last earthquake had been and without this knowledge it was difficult to calculate probabilities for occurrence of the next earthquake. “So,” he explains, “from the very start the objective was to solve a real world problem by constraining the time of the last earthquake on a number of neighbouring faults. Developing and conducting the research with the people who would use the information, and had the local on the ground contacts, was the most natural starting point.”
Dr Roberts’ partners for the grant are Istituto Nazionali di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale, Rome, and Istituto Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Trieste. Colleagues at these organisations are responsible for collecting earth science data, compiling seismic hazard maps and guiding civil protection personnel before, during and after a seismic crisis.
Due to the international nature of the research partners and the need for regular contact between the UK and Italian teams, Dr Roberts made sure that costs, both in terms of time and travel expenses, were clearly budgeted in the application. Six week-long secondments in the UK and Italy are built into the grant. However, the biggest single item of pathway activity is a researcher-user conference in Italy, costing £8,000.
The conference is designed to share research findings with the right people around the world. ”Researchers tend to give papers at conferences hoping that the right people might be there,” says Dr Roberts. “We don’t want to leave that to chance so we are hosting our own conference. We will invite and pay for key individuals worldwide who are responsible for earthquake planning to attend, such as the emergency agencies and regional civil authorities. These are the people who will be able to use our research findings to ultimately save lives.” Also included in Dr Robert’s pathways to impact are a TV documentary, a school open day and media training. Dr Roberts admits that the TV documentary is less focussed than the conference, but also recognises the power of mass media to reach a larger and more diverse audience than he can on his own.
He concludes: “I thought carefully about how to engage beyond my partners in Italy and how I could share my research more widely. You cannot approach the pathways as a tick box exercise. It has to be unique to your research and designed to achieve your ultimate aims, and based on long-standing research collaborations.”
Institution: Birkbeck University of London
Funding council: NERC
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Birbeck Staff Bio