Impact Services
Our mission: to help researchers and institutions better understand and tackle impact
Impact Services is an online subscription service to support researchers in understanding and planning for impact.
Created in collaboration with innovative thought leaders, universities and institutions, all aiming to make "impact culture" a daily reality for researchers, it supports research offices in training researchers on impact and helps to build healthy impact cultures.
The service
Supporting research that transforms lives and shapes futures.
We understand that planning for impact can be time consuming, complex and even confusing, so we have created solutions that will lighten the load. With Impact Services you’ll receive support at every stage of the process, accessing expert help to create your impact strategy, solve problems and make impact engaging.
Whether you are a researcher or work in the research office, we recognise everyone’s role is different, so we have developed a range of services you can tap into to help navigate your path to impact and ultimately achieve better research outcomes for you and your institution.
Included in the service
The Impact Planner is designed for you to plan, articulate and execute the impact associated with your project.
The planner helps you to view your research from a range of different perspectives and identify areas where it can flourish. It also enables you to get a good idea of who you should talk to, or collaborate with, for your research to fly. It’s about realising how your projects can be a catalyst for positive change – globally or domestically.
Through completing the sections, you will generate your unique ‘impact plan’, which plot points the immediate, short and long-term impact your research is seeking to achieve. In addition, it generates a useful stakeholder map, which pinpoints all the important partnerships you’ve developed or need to develop and provides a track record of your collaborative journeys.
We recommend using the Impact Planner right from the outset, but it can be used at any time during your project’s lifecycle. It’s never too late to start thinking about impact – it’s a mindset as well as an outcome.
Impact Services includes a comprehensive set of learning materials to support you in your role.
From practical guides on project management, communicating effectively and engaging with non-academic audiences, to supporting research design and effective dissemination, we’ve aimed to include content which covers multiple stages of the research workflow.
Like with any change – you must be comfortable in your own ‘impact shoes’.
There’s a variety of media options available, with articles, self assessments, videos and infographics and over 240 resources available on demand and across all devices.
The Impact Healthcheck has been designed to get everyone in your institution moving to the ‘impact’ beat – ensuring it forms an integral part of your institution’s culture.
The Healthcheck aims to uncover more about your institution’s current impact culture in order to draw out conclusions.
Through completing the various sections of the Healthcheck, you will be presented with the foundations of an implementation plan, highlighting areas that are running harmoniously, and others which might need some honing.
It’s useful to re-visit the plan at regular intervals – after all, maintaining an ‘impact-fit’ institution is vital, but achieving it usually takes some time.
If you work in the research office...
As well as using the Impact Healthcheck to understand the steps your organisation needs to take towards being ‘impact-fit’ you are likely to be interested in the Impact Planner and how it can help the researchers you work with.
The Impact Planner can be used to help researchers grasp some of the fundamentals around impact literacy, the need to understand the problem and the tools to develop a comprehensive plan. It is a great way of engaging with your researchers by introducing best practice concepts around impact. When used in this way it can help maximise the time you spend together working through some of the more complex challenges.
If you'd like to know more, get in touch
Contact us for a quote, to book a demonstration, and find out how we can help you on your path to impact.
Impact Services: an introduction & demonstration
Emerald's Impact Services has been created in partnership with impact thought leaders, universities, and research Support Services.
Impact Services can enhance the impact literacy – that is the ability to understand and embed impact at all levels of your institution – with tools to support researchers, and understanding and planning impact, and tools to support institutions in embedding impact across their entire research portfolio, Impact Services helps to build supportive and healthy impact cultures in your institution. Watch the video to find out more.
Testimonials
Impact Services is a major step change for the way publishers support impact in the research sector. It not only harnesses the expertise and experience of those working with impact but reflects the realities of implementing provision within a pressurised academic environment. I have been consistently and deeply impressed by Emerald’s commitment to supporting researchers and research managers – a motivation to help the sector that’s so commonly missing from other initiatives – and am indebted to them for driving this work into practice. The value of this work is both measurable – in the changes to practice and provision – but also immeasurable in the way it supports individuals to truly feel supported to do impact.
Emerald's Impact Services have helped sense-check our strategic actions and provided inspiration for additional activities. With the Impact Services Healthcheck we measure our performance and ensure that as an institution we are providing an environment that enables impact to occur. I'm really proud of how far we have come in terms of culture change and having the planning tool helps guide us as we continue to make progress and is a key component of our strategy implementation.
I always say researchers don’t make products - industry does; they don’t develop policy- government does; they don’t deliver social services – community does. So we need to demonstrate impact through the voices of those who are using the evidence.
ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing 2022
Emerald Publishing was shortlisted for the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) award for Innovation in Publishing for its Impact Services.
Our promise and what to expect
Our mission is to improve impact literacy and support healthy practices.
To do this effectively we will work closely with you to understand what’s important. You’ll have a dedicated relationship manager and specialist customer support.
We can then work together to develop a bespoke implementation plan, meet regularly to make sure you have the support you need, and that plans are on track to demonstrate the positive effects of using the service with the aim of working together to make continuous improvements. So that ultimately, research can lead to positive change.
To discover Impact Services, and how they could help you, contact us for a quote specific to your institution's needs.
Your impact primer
Wade Kelly’s book The Impactful Academic empowers you to build a research career that makes a difference. Here’s Wade’s quick guide to the "what, why and how" of impact.
Where did impact come from?
The concept of impact has been around for many years, but it is in the past decade that formal definitions have started to emerge.
Who are my stakeholders?
Stakeholders will vary depending on the project. Whoever your stakeholders are, your relationship with them should be based on mutual respect, equity, trust and shared goals
So how do I 'do impact'?
Impact isn’t something that you do, it’s something that you live. Impact is about your research philosophy: the belief that the new knowledge you generate must be adopted and applied to be of real value.
Start your impact journey
Read chapter 1 of The Impactful Academic for free.
What is impact?
Impact is all about change: change of practice, policy, health outcomes; money generated or saved. Impact is about positive change for your stakeholders.
"An effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia."
– UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) –
"The contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture, beyond the contribution to academic research."
– Australian Research Council (ARC) –
Introducing Impact Services
Supporting a culture of impact – championing impact literacy.
If you'd like to book a free demonstration of our service, or join our community emails covering impact topics and information on Impact Services, please register your interest using this form.