Scoping Impact: An International Study of Contemporary Definitions and Conceptualisations of Impact by Funders of Social Science Research
In 2023, SKAPE was commissioned by the ESRC to carry out an international review of contemporary definitions and conceptualisations of impact. We are now able to make the resulting research public.
In this event, the team who led the work will provide an overview of the project, present key results and discuss their implications for research impact policy and practice. There will also be time for a wider discussion with the audience.
We are very pleased to be joined in this report launch by:
- Huw Vasey – ESRC Deputy Director of Innovation, Business Engagement and Commercialisation
- Justyna Bandola-Gill – University of Birmingham
- Gilbert Ramsay – Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh.
The event will be in-person only and will take place on 26th March, 3.30-5pm, in the Violet Laidlaw Room, Chrystal Macmillan Building.
Please register for this event via Eventbrite: bit.ly/SKAPE-ScopingImpact
Guest speakers:
Huw Vasey is the Deputy Director for Innovation, Business Engagement and Commercialisation at the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). A former academic social science researcher with degrees in anthropology and geography, Huw joined ESRC in 2019. His current portfolio involves leading teams delivering ESRC work on business engagement and commercialisation, as well as the ESRC Impact Acceleration Accounts and the UKRI Innovation & Research Caucus and the UKRI-DSIT Metascience unit. Huw specialises in finding new ways to ensure the UK’s world-leading social science research leads to positive impacts on all of our lives.
Justyna Bandola-Gill is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham. She is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of (Global) Public Policy and Science and Technology Studies. Justyna’s research explores the cultural, institutional and political effects of measurement and evaluation with a focus on higher education and sustainable development. She has a particular interest in the evolving evaluation principles (for example, the research impact agenda) and their impact on the broader academic cultures.
Gilbert Ramsay: Sandwiched between brief flirtations with local television and being director of research at a Middle Eastern think tank, Gilbert worked for ten years as a lecturer in political violence at the University of St Andrews, where he worked with politicians, civil servants, activists, police and satirists before taking another left turn into academic professional services. As SSPS’s Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager he draws on his eclectic love of all forms of social research and his varied career history to support academics in making their research more impactful – trying to accommodate a diversity of understandings of what that might mean.