Walking the tightrope:
Pursuing real-world impacts from
research in an academic environment
David Pannell
Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy
School of Agricultural and Resource Economics
For this PPT see www.davidpannell.net under “Talks”
Balancing act
Academic
impact
Real-world
impact
What matters?
Academic impact
 Sophistication
Real-world impact
 Simplicity
 Originality/innovation
 Usefulness/relevance
 Citations
 Opinions of trusted others
 Academic reputation
 Trust, credibility,
relationships
 Evidence/rigour
 Clarity, persuasiveness
Academic impact
 ERA
 Assessed by established senior academics
 Usually value rigour over relevance
 Usually uni-disciplinary
 Journal quality (A*, A, B, C)
 Citations
 Academic reputation
Real-world impact
 Growing interest
 Perception: we need to do better at convincing
government about benefits of research
 ARC discussing how to include real-world impact
in ERA
 UK’s Research Excellence Framework: 20% of
funding based on “impact” from 2014.
Trial by universities, 2012
 Group of Eight (Go8) and
Aust Technology Network
of Universities (ATN)
 Each university submitted
cherry-picked case
studies (165 submissions)
 Evaluated by people from
industry & government
 24 ‘best’ selected
Example – research project
2000: Salinity was a hot topic
$1.4 billion of public funding
I was shocked
 Poor design of the program
 Program developers seemed to have been
unaware of crucial areas of salinity research and
their implications
 No chance of any significant benefits
My response
 Media
 Discussion papers
 Presentations
 Submissions
Tried to help them
 Developed INFFER (Investment Framework for
Environmental Resources)
 A tool for integrating the science with other info
 Develop logical, evidence-based environmental projects
 Assess value for money
 Prioritise projects
Strategy
 Extensive input by users
 Make tools as simple as possible
 Provide training and help desk for users
 Clear documentation aimed at non-experts
 Public critiques of existing approaches
 Attempt to influence gov’t agencies to change the
signals
Regional NRM application
International application
Policy impacts
 Senate inquiry (2006)
 Recommended use of INFFER
 NRM Ministerial Council (2007)
 Endorsed new set of principles for investment in salinity
 Victorian Government, Biodiversity White Paper
 “INFFER will be utilised for the next five years”.
 Caring for our Country
 Influenced design of project template
Example – blog
“Pannell Discussions”
 Started in 2004
 Theme: environmental economics, agricultural
economics, policy, etc.
 250 posts so far
 Each is a mini-discussion paper (500-1000 words)
 Often references my own research
 About one every two weeks
“Pannell Discussions”
 Subscribers receive notification of new posts
 640 subscribers
 New posts are tweeted (130 followers)
 Popular posts get about 1000 readers
Real-world impacts
 Less obvious than for INFFER
 Readers have a better understanding of
economics than they would have
 Some reduction in confusion, misconceptions,
prejudices
 Greater awareness of specific tools & concepts
 Increased profile for myself and UWA in the
community
Costs?
 It takes time
 INFFER: lots!
 Pannell Discussions: about 1 hour per week
 Some academics might not consider these
endeavours to be very academically respectable
 Some aspects are difficult, stressful, frustrating
 Is it worth it?
 Real world – definitely yes
 Academically – yes, but …
Academic benefits (sample of 1!)
 Journal papers generated
 Directly part of the INFFER work: 17
 Related/stimulated by: 16
 But, different sorts of papers
 Responding to identified real-world needs
 Can be out of left field relative to the existing lit
 More inter-disciplinary papers
 More synthesis/commentary type of papers
 Mostly, it’s not the type of research that gets into the
most prestigious disciplinary journals
Academic benefits
 Citations
 These papers get relatively well cited
 One INFFER-related paper is the most cited paper over
the last 8 years in Land Economics (one of the leading
international journals in my field)
Academic benefits
 Prizes/awards
 INFFER
 Eureka Prize for
Interdisciplinary Research
 AARES Quality of Research Discovery Award
 Pannell Discussions
 AARES Quality of Research Communication Award
 General
 Perhaps made some contribution to my Federation
Fellowship
Academic benefits
 Opportunities generated
 Invited onto steering committee of major EU
project, thanks to blog
 Reputation for useful research  easier to get
funding (unsolicited approaches offering $)
Would I recommend it?
 Not for everyone
 Need to
 Get a buzz out of making a difference
 Have strong communication skills
 Enjoy the various challenges
 Be prepared/able to make the time
 Not be too obsessed with academic prestige
 If project pushes for change, need to
 Enjoy learning about how things work in the real world
 Be resilient and persistent
Resilience/persistence needed
 People will suspect your motives
 People with a vested interest in the status quo
will attack you
 People will misunderstand, misinterpret, and
totally misrepresent what you are saying
 Nobody reads more than a page
 Nobody knows about your discipline
 Everybody is too rushed to do things properly
Resilience/persistence needed
 Everybody thinks they are doing a good job,
even if they clearly aren’t
 People think evidence and analysis is optional
 It reduces their flexibility for decision making
 People will pursue objectives you think are
inappropriate
 Significant change takes years
 You have to repeat yourself ad nauseam
Resilience/persistence needed
 You’ll see the same mistakes made repeatedly
 If you succeed, it could be more because of
relationships and trust than the quality of your
evidence or logic
 Even if you convince some people in the system
of your position, people higher up who know
absolutely nothing about it will over-rule them
 The person you’ve been cultivating will change
jobs
Implications for universities
 Don’t expect everyone to do it
 Some high achievers for real-world impact might
not be academic high achievers
 Perhaps an initiative to free up some time for
selected people
 Don’t set rigid requirements for “quality” based
only on academic criteria
Implications for disciplines
 Broaden perspective on what constitutes quality
 Broaden who judges
 Avoid rigour-mortis
 Be open to multi-disciplinary work
Resources
 Pannell, D.J. and Roberts, A.M. (2009).
Conducting and delivering integrated research to
influence land-use policy: salinity policy in
Australia, Environmental Science and Policy
12(8), 1088-1099.
 http://dpannell.fnas.uwa.edu.au/dp0803.htm
 Pannell, D.J. (2004). Effectively communicating
economics to policy makers. Australian Journal
of Agricultural and Resource Economics 48(3),
535-555.
 http://dpannell.fnas.uwa.edu.au/j78ajare.pdf
Resources
 Weible et al. (2012). “Understanding and
influencing the policy process”, Policy Science
45, 1-12.
 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11077-0119143-5
Pannell Discussions (Blog posts)
 150 – Why don’t environmental managers use
decision theory?
 http://www.pannelldiscussions.net/2009/04/150-whydont-environmental-managers-use-decision-theory/
 136 – Engaging with policy: tips for researchers
 http://www.pannelldiscussions.net/2008/09/136engaging-with-policy-tips-for-researchers/
Resources
 A relevant blog post by ecologist Brian McGill on
“What it takes to do policy-relevant science”
 http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/what
-it-takes-to-do-policy-relevant-science/
 Video: Ben Martin (U Sussex) “Science Policy
Research - Can Research Influence Policy?
How? And Does It Make for Better Policy?”
 http://upload.sms.csx.cam.ac.uk/media/747324
For this PPT see www.davidpannell.net under “Talks”
Other needs (for policy impact)
 Need some demand pull
 Seek a product champion
 Understand potential users
 Understand the chain from research to impact for
your issue
A chain from research to impact:
Information for policy
 Research
 Something useful is learned (or isn’t)
 New information influences policy (or doesn’t)
 Policy change is implemented (or isn’t)
 If policy aims to change behaviour, people
respond as intended (or don’t)
 Changes (relative to no research) result – social,
environmental or economic benefits (or not)
Other needs (for policy impact)
 Need “absorptive capacity” in the organisation
 The political circumstances need to be right. You
can’t change ideological positions of govt.
 Timing. Grasp opportunities.
 Good communication
 Simplicity, brevity, clarity
 Avoid jargon, maths, complex graphs