Defining impact
As an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) investment, ADR UK adopts the definition of impact used by ESRC and across UK Research and Innovation as a whole:
“Impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy.”
This includes informing changes to government policy and public service provision that lead to better social and economic outcomes for people and communities. This impact can be at any geographic level: from the local, to the national and international.
Our teams and partners have a range of strategies to maximise impact across our ‘Five Ps’: process, policy, practice, people and potential. We also measure when we provide research impact through the provision of sustainable datasets that support research use beyond the ADR UK investment.
Common approaches to ensuring we deliver real impact are embedded across our work. These include:
- partnering with government to identify and open up public data for research securely, sustainably and with future impact at the heart of planning
- aligning with national strategies and departmental Areas of Research Interest in each UK nation
- engaging with the right stakeholders, communities and individuals at the right time to inform outputs with meaningful potential
- delivering research findings in formats that are digestible and usable by different interested parties, including policy makers and practitioners
- disseminating research findings widely to maximise use, evaluating and tracking the results regularly
- taking a leading role in data infrastructure innovation to play our part in its ongoing development
- ensuring all our work fulfils the public good test, embedded into the Digital Economy Act.
The Five Ps can be viewed as a pyramid, with each layer of impact often leading to the next. Our ultimate goal is to impact the lives of people living in the UK - this sits at the top of our impact pyramid.
