Promoting impact literacy through interactive training

A university in Scotland had written research impact into their long-term strategy and wanted to build the foundations by promoting basic impact literacy across the institution. As part of this, they were planning to host a cluster of diverse training events for REF-eligible and impact-active researchers. They invited several suppliers to bid for this substantial cluster.

We offered a suite of highly interactive workshops, each tailored to specific REF Main Panel areas, with a strong practical ‘take-home’ element for participants to build on in developing their own impact case studies for the REF2029.

Between them, our proposed workshops fully mapped against the university’s objectives for the cluster of training events in hand.

The workshops we proposed included:

• Research Impact for the REF and Beyond
  A workshop designed to ensure that the foundations are in place for anyone who may be involved in preparing the University of Aberdeen’s impact submission for the REF2029
• Good Writing for Impact Case Studies: Creating a Strong Narrative
  For those who may be tasked with developing and writing an impact case study for the REF2029, as well as those supporting individuals and teams with their writing
• Impact Case Studies for the REF2028: Identifying Your Front Runners
  Follow-on workshops for smaller groups or teams who need to identify and start developing the strongest impact case studies for a given UoA.

The university accepted our offer, and we delivered the first two workshops repeatedly in 2023, with the third following in 2024.

Workshop participants were very engaged and expressed high satisfaction levels. Some comments among many included:

“A great deal of very valuable information regarding what evidence we should gather and how. Also some great extra detail in Q&A occurring throughout.”

“Detailed rather than broad strokes info. Lots of room to discuss participants’ own examples and questions.”

“Excellent facilitation. I admired the way you were able to come up with concrete examples ‘on the fly’ in response to some complex questions.”

“I will take away some really clear ideas on what not to include in an impact case study, as well as what to achieve.”

Further bespoke impact training sessions for this university are planned for 2025.