Prevention of chemotherapy-induced hair loss through scalp cooling

Academic researchers sometimes look at me askance when I say that they need to tell a strong story. In their minds, story equals fiction.

But storytelling is as important if you want to communicate factual information effectively. Creating a strong narrative is key to shaping a successful impact case study. So this Masterclass will focus on some of the key aspects of how to construct such a narrative in the best possible way.

The case study I have picked as an example, by Nik Georgopoulos and Andrew Collett (both at the time at the University of Huddersfield), certainly takes its storytelling seriously. And the raw material is good: it’s almost a rags-to-riches tale – small, family-run company from Yorkshire becomes global market leader, all thanks to academic research.

Before I say any more, I have to declare an interest: some years before this case study was submitted to the REF, I had seven cycles of chemotherapy. I was fortunate in that my NHS Trust offered me scalp cooling – the only known way of preventing chemotherapy-induced hair loss. I jumped at it. So in a sense, I became one of the beneficiaries of the research described in the Huddersfield case study. The fact that I was later asked to do some work with the authors felt quite serendipitous.

But back to storytelling. So what are the ingredients of a strong impact narrative?

Tell your panel why it matters

Your impact case study will be off to a good start if you let your panel know, early on in the text, what the real-world problem or issue was that made the research desirable or necessary.

The best place for such a problem statement, or context paragraph, is at the beginning of Section 2 – before you go into detail about the research you undertook. The Huddersfield case study does just that – so the panel learn about the significance of scalp cooling early on and will understand from the word go that biological evidence was needed to explain why scalp cooling works, to enable the technology to access international markets.

Mention stakeholder relationships 

The family-run company in Yorkshire, Paxman, plays a key role in the impact case study. It was them who approached the Huddersfield research team to ask them to elucidate the biological mechanism which makes scalp cooling effective.

The case study does not tell us whether the researchers had a relationship with Paxman prior to this approach. But it illustrates an important principle: if you do have stakeholder relationships which have led to impact, spell that out in your case study – sub-panels are keen to hear about them. “Some of the most persuasive case studies,” Main Panel D noted after the REF2021, “were based on long-standing, sustained commitments to collaborations, beneficiaries and other partners throughout the assessment period.”

Commerce is not a dirty word

In our case study, Paxman is the main beneficiary, apart from the patients, of course.  The biological evidence provided by the Huddersfield researchers led to clearance of Paxman’s scalp cooling device by the US Food and Drug Administration, which in turn opened up international markets and quadrupled the company’s turnover.

Economic impacts are, of course, a key part of the REF impact definition. Yet some researchers, especially in Main Panels C and D, seem uncomfortable when I ask about the commercial impacts of their work – in a few cases, even to the point of feeling  honour-bound to conceal such impacts.

I can only encourage them not to shoot themselves in the foot: if there is positive impact on a company or business, it adds to your impact tally and broadens your range of beneficiaries, and hence your Reach. Omitting such information from your impact case would be foolish.

“The biggest challenges in preparing the impact case study were to keep remembering that dissemination or impact-aiming activities alone are not impact, and to ensure you present a ‘story’ (and we thank Kristine for helping particularly with this!)”

T. Georgopoulos, Associate Professor in Cell Biology & Transforming Lives Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University (University of Huddersfield until 2023)

Give your narrative a purposeful structure

Section 4 is the heart of an impact case study – the part where you display your impact to best effect.

To help your panel assess the Reach and Significance of your impacts as easily as possible, it is important to organise your material in some way. In a few cases, a chronological approach may work; more commonly, it makes sense to structure your material by beneficiary group and/or impact type.

Whichever approach you choose, it is important to explain how it happened that the research led to the impacts.

The Huddersfield researchers have chosen a hybrid approach to structuring Section 4:

They begin with a short summary outlining the most important impacts.

Next, we hear how the research led to FDA clearance and international licensing, opening up the US market to Paxman’s scalp cooling system.

After that, the commercial impacts on Paxman are laid out in some detail, with plenty of quantitative and qualitative evidence woven into the text. The reader is left in no doubt about the enormous significance of the research for the company.

Further sub-sections demonstrate how the roll-out of scalp cooling has made a positive difference for clinical professionals, and how it has improved the quality of life of cancer patients. One patient quoted in the case study describes the psychological effects of keeping her hair as “monumental”, leaving the panel in no doubt about the Significance of the research to people undergoing chemotherapy.

A final paragraph deals with raising awareness and understanding of scalp cooling among the general public.

So the structure of the impact narrative ripples outwards from the centre – the company – to clinical professionals, patients and finally the general public. It is a logical way of organizing the material in this case, and as a result the entire ‘impact story’ reads well and is very clear.

Postscript

As most readers will know, sub-panels tend to be cagey about the star ratings for individual case studies. But we have it on very good authority that this one came away with a 4* rating. And that would certainly have been a well-deserved score.