School of Social & Political Sciences

The impact game is important for research-intensive universities. For one there are distinct monetary incentives, as each four-star Impact Case Study (ICS) potentially earns hundreds of thousands of pounds through REF returns. On a personal level, there are emotional and reputational rewards to seeing the fruits of one’s intellectual labour playing out in policy and practice. According to a review of 2021 REF impact case studies by Dr Chris Claassen for the Politics and International Relations subject area, four-star impact case studies typically have highly significant impacts and convincing and clear evidence of the link between the underlying research and the impact. Two types of research dominate: applied policy research with “very technical or legalistic characteristics” and research on the design and operation of democratic institutions, especially in the UK. In both types, researchers often had “extraordinary access to policymakers.” But what if the population one is trying to impact is living in an authoritarian setting, where researchers are seen as outsiders and access to decision-makers is intentionally limited?

The distinction between “process-oriented” versus “knowledge-first” research is useful in helping us to conceptualise the challenges. In the former, the researcher combines different roles—change agent, knowledge-broker, self-reflexive scientist, process facilitator and reflective scientist, whereas in the latter, only the last role is important.¹ Researchers who are process-oriented “need to be prepared to work with the political system.”² The research often involves transformation of power relationships in the direction of greater democracy.³ Researchers need to work at creating and maintaining spaces for collaboration to allow the “co-construction of social reality” with the impact target group.⁴ To foster a sense of shared problem ownership, researchers need to be able to “analyse dynamics and actors, initiate or facilitate the process, select and motivate participants, empower them to lead/own the process.”⁵ Clearly, all of this is going to be a lot harder in an authoritarian setting.

Consider the case of Turkmenistan, where the biggest problem is access. Turkmenistan is one of the most unfree countries in the world, having had a Freedom House political rights and civil liberties score of seven, the lowest possible, for every year since 1993-1994. The government of Turkmenistan does not engage with most Western governments, never mind academics from the West. Nevertheless, Turkmenistan was the focus of an impact case study by Professor Luca Anceschi in the 2021 REF cycle. In late 2015, Professor Anceschi was invited to advise the European Parliament (EP)’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on a policy roadmap to promote the ratification of a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Turkmenistan. Anceschi’s underlying research⁶ identified inconsistency in the way the EP was applying its human rights policy towards Turkmenistan, and his targeted engagement activities helped to build a consensus for a positive vote on Turkmenistan’s PCA in March 2019. The case study illustrates one of the biggest challenges of conducting impact work in authoritarian settings—gaining access, but it also shows that it is possible to influence an authoritarian regime indirectly, by working with democratic institutions on home turf to shape policy toward that regime.

China illustrates a different problem: evidencing impact. The Chinese regime has become increasingly self-confident as its economy and international influence have grown, but while China seems open to new ideas, it often feels like a one-way street, with a closed decision-making process at the end. China’s Freedom House score has hovered at 6.5 since 1998-1999. Reflecting on consultancy work and underlying research⁷ related to improving unemployment insurance provision and retraining laid-off workers in China’s rust belt in the early 2000s, Professor Jane Duckett recalled that it was relatively easy, as an international expert on an aid project funded by the UK Department for International Development, to gain access to officials, to interview them and to exchange ideas. Evidencing impact was much more difficult. Because she did the research between 2003 and 2005 and wrote the ICS in 2012-13 (after ‘impact’ was newly included in REF2014 — it had not been a feature of RAEs before that), evidence was difficult to find. Therefore, researchers should keep good records of their activities and impact as they go along. She noted that in recent years, and especially since the start of President Xi Jinping’s second term in 2017, international researchers’ access has reduced significantly.

Tanzania is an example of what Freedom House calls a “partly free” regime, with an average political rights and civil liberties score hovering at five since 2020, and such partial freedom allows for attempts to create a collaborative space. In 2022, Dr Neil Munro and his Tanzanian co-author, Dr Opportuna Kweka of the University of Dar Es Salaam, conducted an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA)-funded project based on underlying research⁸ about trust in the publicly owned water utility, DAWASA, using data from a 2018 survey. The project involved hiring Kweka as a policy research officer based at a local NGO to produce a theory of change and a policy report. Kweka took part in a popular live phone-in radio show, known as PowerBreakfast, hosted by Masoud Kipanya, who is also a nationally famous cartoonist. Kipanya produced five cartoons for a national newspaper and social media on the subject of water reaching an average of 132,990 accounts with 169,919 impressions, 7,159 likes and 339 comments. The radio show and cartoons were successful in stimulating a public debate about water, but the authorities had a defensive reaction. They sent the regional commissioner to take part in a later PowerBreakfast, which Kweka interpreted to mean they were “treating water as a security issue.” DAWASA was reluctant to acknowledge failures in service delivery, and to legitimize the role of outsiders in solving problems. Still, DAWASA and the regulator, EWURA, did express interest in receiving reports and data from the underlying research, and through the mediation of Kipanya, we shared the relevant files.

Even under a partly free regime, there is a need to tread carefully to avoid prosecution. Professor Anja Neundorf presented the results of her research⁹ on promoting democracy in Turkey through social media activism. Turkey’s Freedom House political rights and civil liberties score has hovered at 5.5 since 2018 and the Varieties of Democracy has classified Turkey as an electoral autocracy since 2013. Outside of metropolitan areas and a few opposition strongholds, there is limited space and resources to fight for the remaining democratic institutions. Professor Neundorf’s research involves running randomised trials of the effectiveness of recruiting election monitors online, to ensure the legitimacy of Turkish elections. Interestingly, their social media campaign was most effective in the most deprived areas. Her team has also experimentally tested several civic education interventions, implemented on social media, where they demonstrated that making a positive case for democracy reduces votes for the ruling AKP.

Staff from the College of Social Sciences Research Support Office attended the research practice seminar and gave their reactions to the experience shared.  Lewis Thomson commented that there are various levels of impact, and impact case studies with impact focussed on NGOs can be just as convincing as impact case studies aimed at governments. While changing policy or legislation may be the ultimate goal, it is not necessarily a likely outcome in many contexts, and there will often be intermediary or related impacts along the way (e.g., on citizens, public debate, the work of NGOs, the work of democratic institutions in terms of their engagement with authoritarian regimes etc). So, while it is important to keep that ultimate goal in mind, it is also really important to be aware of (and capture) these incremental steps towards more widescale change.  Dr Sarah Weakley encouraged researchers to do work that is important to them first, with an eye to the REF but not treating REF as the be-all and end-all. She also commented that collaborating effectively with local partners to create a sense of co-ownership seems to be crucial – both in settings that are non-democratic and in contexts like the UK. Research support staff can help researchers to build impact plans into their projects, but researchers should temper expectations of success with the understanding that policy impact is a long game. In authoritarian settings researchers face particular challenges in securing access, evidencing impact, creating a collaborative space and negotiating political restrictions.

Find out more about:

Professor Luca Anceschi

Professor Jane Duckett

Dr Neil Munro

Professor Anja Neundorf

End Notes

1. Julia M. Wittmayer and Niko Schäpke. 2014. "Action, research and participation: roles of researchers in sustainability transitions."  Sustainability Science 9 (4):483-496. doi: 10.1007/s11625-014-0258-4.

2. David Coghlan and A. B. Rami Shani. 2005. "Roles, Politics, and Ethics in Action Research Design."  Systemic Practice and Action Research 18 (6):533-546. doi: 10.1007/s11213-005-9465-3, p.537.

3. Davydd Greenwood and Morten Levin. 2007. Introduction to Action Research: Social Research for Social Change. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks,  & London: SAGE, p.177.

4. Wittmayer & Schäpke, p.485.

5. Wittmayer & Schäpke, p.486.

6. Luca Anceschi. 2008. Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy: Positive Neutrality and the Consolidation of the Turkmen Regime. Series: Central Asian studies series. Routledge: London ; New York. ISBN 9780415454407

7. Jane Duckett and Athar Hussain. 2008. “Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues.” Pacific Review 21(2): 211-229. doi: 10.1080/09512740801990279

8. Neil Munro and Opportuna Kweka. 2021. "Trust in Providers of Domestic Water: A Comparison of the Public Utility and Informal Vendors in Dar Es Salaam."  The Journal of Development Studies 57 (10):1710-1722. doi: 10.1080/00220388.2021.1887479.

9. Steven E. Finkel, Anja Neundorf and Ericka Rascon Ramırez. 2023. “Can online civic education induce democratic citizenship? Experimental evidence from a new democracy.” American Journal of Political Science, doi: 10.1111/ajps.12765 (Early Online Publication)

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First published: 26 May 2023