Making engagement count in your impact narrative

The dust is settling on the new guidance for Engagement and Impact published in December. Full and final details are not expected until the Autumn; but the REF Town Hall at the end of January provided a welcome opportunity to reflect on key changes and what they mean for writing impact case studies.

One of the clues is in the title: engagement and engagement strategies as a pathway to impact will play a far greater role in this REF. Or rather, there’s more explicit emphasis on them: on closer inspection, there was quite a lot of engagement in REF2021 impact case studies too.

Let me unpack this a little. The definition of ‘engagement’ for the purposes of a REF2029 ICS is,

 
“An interaction between the HEI and relevant individuals, groups, communities, organisations, the public, commercial partners, or policy makers, that is purposeful, responsible, and context-appropriate.”

 
This is the widest possible understanding of engagement with the public, and it applies to the entire research life cycle: from research commissioned by bodies outside academia and stakeholder engagement during the research design phase, to engagement activities purposefully conceived after the research is complete to generate or enhance impact.

Plenty of REF2021 case studies talked about just such pathways to impact, across most if not all UoAs. Just one example: in UoA12, Imperial College London’s case study on improving resilience against fire and blast prominently featured the engineering firm Arup, which co-sponsored much of the research and also benefited from it substantially. At the other end of the cycle, the Imperial research team used engagement to roll out their findings through outreach, including explaining Fire Science at five exhibitions and festivals attended by over 100,000 visitors. (The fact that the authors omitted details of the impact on these audiences was clearly not held against them in this case – the case study still received a 4* rating.)

Signpost furiously

So engagement was very much there in the last REF – but it wasn’t necessarily labelled as such, and the strategic, purposeful nature of it was often made light of.

ICS authors preparing their drafts for the next REF will do well to signpost their engagement furiously, spelling out that all their different ways of purposefully engaging with the public during the research life cycle are just that – strategic engagement.

That said, the REF team readily acknowledge that not all research involves engagement, and not all impacts result from an engagement strategy. Hence, including engagement in your impact narrative is not compulsory – and those who don’t do it will not be penalised, unless they fail to explain how their impacts came about.

Let’s not forget that the criteria for scoring impact case studies remain the same: it is the Reach and Significance of the impacts that will decide who gets those coveted 4 stars. So don’t be sidetracked.

Beware of the bear trap

As a veteran of two previous REFs, the idea of engagement as an explicit part of the impact narrative initially left me with a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach – because it can easily turn into a bear trap. Here’s why.

In the REF2014 cycle, and even seven years later, I reviewed countless impact case study drafts that contained the same basic error: descriptions, often enthusiastic and  detailed, of public engagement activities that had not led to impact. Bad mistake. Engagement activities should be included in a case study only if they are an integral part of the impact narrative. Any engagement activities that did not lead to substantial impact need to be ruthlessly eliminated from your draft, no matter how much effort you may have put into planning and running those activities. And all this still holds for the REF2029.

REF panels and sub-panels will need to consider further how and where in the REF engagement can be assessed in its own right, and what to do in the impact narrative with its newly arrived stablemate: responsible practice.

For now, as you work on your draft, stick to this rule of thumb: tell your panel how engagement contributed to the impacts you achieved, but nothing more. Beware of the bear trap and keep your impact narrative focused on impact, and you cannot go far wrong.