Impact case studies need to be written using standard terms, says report

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is being urged to set standards for the measurement of certain forms of impact in the next Research Excellence Framework.

The authors of an independent analysis of 6,679 impact case studies submitted to REF 2014 have said that their analysis was hampered by the different ways that universities measured the same thing when trying to show the impact of their research.

Jonathan Grant, who studies research impact at King’s College London and led the evaluation of the REF, says that although this is a problem, analyses show that narratives are the best way to measure impact. To improve the process for next time, he says, HEFCE only needs to tweak it.