The Holy Grail of ‘Research Impact’
Marta Natalia Wróblewska
University of Warwick
DISCONEX project
19.11.15, Professional and Academic Discourse (PAD),
Centre for Applied Linguistics, Warwick University
Plan of presentation
Topic and research questions
Theory
Methods
How to corroborate your research impact?
Some initial findings
Bibliography + Q&A
What is research ‘impact’
and why study it (1/2)
 ‘Impact agenda’ introduced with REF 2014
 ‘Impact’ – ‘an effect on, change or benefit to
the economy, society, culture, public policy or
services, health, the environment or quality of
life, beyond academia’
 Academic units submit 1 impact case study per
~10 active researchers.
 CSs assessed by ‘expert panels’, to account for
20% of the overall score
What is research ‘impact’
and why study it (2/2)
Why is’ research impact’ of interest for discourse
analysts?
Discursive interest
Critical interest
Personal interest
Research questions
How did ‘impact’ surface in discourse & policy?
 Academic evaluation – between peer review
& metrics
 Structural transformations in higher education
(‘academic capitalism’)
 Relationship between academia and the nonacademic world
How does ‘impact’ work?
 Emergence of a common understanding of
‘impact’
 ‘Political’ uses of ‘impact’
 Influence on academic careers and research
Theory – some notions
 Drawing from many disciplines: Discourse Analysis,
Science and Technology Studies (STS), Sociology of
Valuation and Evaluation
Michel Foucault:
 Governmentality
 Genealogy & archeology
 Problematisation
Michèle Lamont:
 Hierarchy vs. heterarchy
 Boundary work
Corpus of texts + methods
 3 disciplines – linguistics, sociology, philosophy
 2 sets of data
 case studies from 3 disciplines (around 300)
 Interviews with actors involved with REF 2014
(directors of research, authors of CSs, policymakers, panelists)
Data analysis
 case studies : elements of genre analysis &
rhetoric
 interviews : ‘boundary work’,
‘governmentality’, ‘erasing’
Initial findings – pilot
20 CSs in sociology analyzed looking for rules of
genre
diversity in style, formatting, referencing…
title - only section of CS which are standardized
little details on research, focus on providing
evidence for ‘impact’
variety of ‘corroborative techniques’
Initial findings
How to corroborate your
research impact?
Most frequent ‘corroborative techniques’
 testimonials (76 coded references)
 numbers (75)
 professional collaborations (67)
accounts of interest from media (49)
Initial findings
Corroborating research
impact – testimonials
testimonials from:(experts and practitioners – 43,
policymakers – 12, members of public – 7,
reviewers – 3)
VIPs (17):
 Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, one of the world’s most
prominent financial journalists, has drawn on X’s work several
times
 Followers include politicians such as Northern Ireland’s First
Minister, Peter Robinson, members of every political party in the
UK, international organisations like the European Union, NATO and
the White House, social movements and victim rights activists,
and world leaders like Nelson Mandela
 (X’s research) informs the plot of John le Carré’s novel, Our Kind of
Traitor. The author acknowledges him
Initial findings
Corroborating research
impact – numbers (1/2)
 The X Report has been downloaded over 50,000 times since publication in
February 2012;
 (the podcast based on the research) will have a 10 year lifespan and is
expected to reach at least 8000 history students;
 480 copies (of a pamphlet) have been distributed by TWN at international
environmental policy-making meetings;
 Prospect magazine naming X amongst the 25 intellectuals with most
impact on the “public conversation” about the financial crisis;
 The novel (drawing on the research) sold 132,000 copies in the United
Kingdom in 2011, making it the 89th bestselling book
 Twitter: Currently, 8,081 Twitter followers (…) the Facebook account had
received 586 ‘likes’;
 Through its direct impact on these individuals and organisations, the
research has delivered indirect benefits to millions of children and adults
around the world.
Initial findings
Corroborating research
impact – numbers (2/2)
Professor X’s sociological research Y has become a
central reference point for journalists, film makers,
writers, artists, curators, archaeologists, and activists
 The research findings have also benefitted action
groups, peace practitioners, churches and other civil
society groups in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and
elsewhere
 The research has subsequently influenced national
policy in Rwanda, professional standards and best
practice for development workers in Africa and Asia,
social work practice for professionals in the United
Kingdom, and legal representation in the USA
Next steps:
Analysis of CSs in other disciplines
Analysis of the use of numbers
 Interviews
Bibliography
•
Angermuller, J. (2013). Discours académique et gouvernementalité
entrepreneuriale. Des textes aux chiffres’. In M. Temmar, J.
Angermuller, F. Lebaron (Ed.), Les discours sur l'économie. Paris: PUF.
•
Foucault, M., Burchell, G., Gordon, C., & Miller, P. (1991). The Foucault
effect : studies in governmentality : with two lectures by and an
interview with Michel Foucault. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
•
Lamont, M. l. (2009). How professors think : inside the curious world of
academic judgment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
•
Lamont, M. (2012). Toward a Comparative Sociology of Valuation
and Evaluation. Annual Review of Sociology, 38(21), 201-221.
•
Münch, R. (2014). Academic capitalism : universities in the global
struggle for excellence. New York: Routledge.
•
Sayer, D. (2015). Rank hypocrisies : the insult of the REF. Los Angeles:
Sage.
•
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis : English in academic and
research settings. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge
University Press.