Research & Innovation Services

Guidance and Resources

Explore guidance and resources that can be useful to researchers in a range of disciplines, engaging with various stakeholders, and at different points on their path towards impact.

Please note that the Research Impact & Engagement team do not endorse any specific organisations, businesses, resources or methodologies for pursuing or evaluating impact. If you are looking for guidance and resources tailored to your work get in touch with your College Impact team or email us at RIandE@glasgow.ac.uk

You can select one of the following topics to quickly find what you need:

• Understanding impact 
• Planning for impact
• Developing channels for impact
• Developing skills
• Capturing impact

Understanding Impact

• Research Impact: Making a Difference: online, self-paced course developed by University of Glasgow introducing researchers to what research impact is and how to create it.
• LSE Impact Blog: a platform for understanding and increasing the impact of academic research, particularly in the social sciences.
• Economic and Social Research Council Impact toolkit: find out how the ESRC define impact and identify the principles you should be aware of when applying for funding. You can also find advice and guidance to help you communicate your work.

Planning for Impact

• Impact Planning Template: a step-by-step guide to interrogate your research and help formulate your research impact vision.
• Wellcome Trust has compiled a list of common pitfalls when applying for public engagement funding which are useful regardless of who you are seeking funding from.

Developing Channels for Impact

Public Engagement 

• Explore public engagement opportunities and the support, guidance, and resources available to help researchers at University of Glasgow engage with the wider community for mutual benefit. 
• The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has a library of resources to support high-quality public engagement practice and policy.
• Community Engagement: An Exploration is an online, self-paced course developed by colleagues at the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, with valuable insights from community partners.

Informing and Influencing Policy 

• The Scottish Policy and Research Exchange provides a range of resources and training events and opportunities for feeding into policy forums in the Scottish context. As a member of SPRE, University of Glasgow staff and students can access all SPRE events and resources. 
• The UK Parliament Knowledge Exchange Unit supports the exchange of information and expertise between researchers and the UK Parliament. They offer training, guidance, and updates on opportunities for engagement.  
• The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) sources reliable and impartial scientific research evidence for the UK Parliament. Explore their programme of future research and find out how to contribute as an expert. 
• Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) champions academic policy engagement to strengthen evidence-informed policymaking in the UK. Explore their offer of blogs, toolkits, guides and reports that explore and support academic policy engagement.
• Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) is a knowledge exchange and research project that explores how to support effective and sustained engagement between academics and policy professionals across the higher education sector and publish a range of resources on this topic. 
• How to engage with policy makers: a guide for academics in the arts and humanities published by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Working with Schools and Young People 

• Engaging Young People with Cutting Edge Research: guidance for teachers and researchers published by Research Councils UK. 

Developing Skills

• Explore support and guidance on how you can share your research more widely and maximise your chances of getting future grants and working with new collaborators.

Capturing Impact

Guidance and Resources

• REF2021 Annex A Examples of impacts and indicators: a table included as guidance for REF2021 that provides examples of the kind of indicators that can be used to capture and evidence different types of impact.
• Collecting Research Impact Evidence: a 2016 report based on experiences from the Higher Education sector that provides advice and guidance on the collection and analysis of impact evidence.
• Guidance and resources for evaluating public engagement activities and impact from the University of Glasgow Public Engagement team.
• Library of resources from Evaluation Support Scotland, an independent charity and company specialising in monitoring and evaluation in the third sector.
• The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement has a range of guidance on evaluation of public engagement activities and impact.
• Better Evaluation is a knowledge platform that hosts information, guidance, and resources to help with evaluations.
• Using Surveys to Evaluate Impact is a manual developed on behalf of Queen Mary University London. 

Tools

• Qualtrics: a web-based survey software.
• Mentimeter: a digital tool that enables real-time interactivity, engagement, and feedback.
• The University's Enlighten repository includes a Knowledge Exchange and Impact function to record work related to your research outside academia.
• Altmetrics can help track the reach of your research (who is citing or talking about it), which can be useful when planning for or trying to evidence research impact.

Research Excellence Framework 

• University of Glasgow REF2029 site.
• Official Research Excellence Framework website.
• Database of REF2021 Impact Case Studies.

Training and Support 

Explore what training is available to help you understand research impact and develop skills and knowledge to achieve it. 

Contact us at RIandE@glasgow.ac.uk if you’re looking for more guidance or have suggestions for resources to add to this library.