Collecting Evidence
Evidence of Impact – is qualitative and/or quantitative indicator or documentation corroborating the contribution/change in the society or economy resulted due to your research findings.
It is imperative to understand the difference between evidence of activity and evidence of change. 'Evidencing impact' presentation by Rose-Marie Barbeau, University's Impact Manager will further help in demystifying this concept.
The 2021 Research Excellence Framework guidance contains an extremely useful and comprehensive table offering examples of a wide range of impacts, alongside the types of evidence that you would expect to see supporting those impact claims.
Evidence guidance lists different types of evidence, its advantages and disadvantage (from HEFCE-commissioned paper published in 2016, Collecting Research Impact Evidence).
Testimonials from research users can be powerful form of qualitative evidence of change, further guidance for which can be found on the LSE blog
Evaluation of your impact activity will help in qualitative evidence collection, narrate whether any secondary or tertiary impacts have been generated, and inform future research/impact activities. For more information, please see the links on the side.
You can record activities and documentation related to external engagement activities and store (non-confidential) documents which may be useful as evidence in an impact case study on the University's Knowledge Exchange & Impact repository.
More information on Evaluation
- Steps to manage your evaluation (Better Evaluation website link)
- Resources for evaluating PE events (MVLS public engagement pages)
- Planning evaluation of museum exhibits - by Ben Gammon [doc]