Support for Impact

We aim to provide support and reward staff who have consistently engaged in engagement, impact and innovation activities, while providing new opportunities for those who may have been limited from doing so in the past.

With the increasing emphasis by the UK Government and Funding Councils on translating research into impact, we are keen to enable as much of our internationally recognised research to fulfil its impact potential as possible. As part of the University’s commitment to investing in impact and innovation, a number of key initiatives have been developed that aim to remove some of the barriers that may hinder or prevent the impact of our research.

Time

Undertaking impact and innovation activities can be time consuming and, with the exception of certain external grants, not directly funded. This runs the risk of research impact being a low priority compared with other areas of staff activity. We aim to address this by allocating time in the WAMM and creating a specific entry for impact activities. WAMM has been suspended for the 2023 calendar year in order to improve its functionality.

Support

Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Officers provide discipline-specific advice, support when undertaking engagement and impact activities and assistance when writing up case studies for the REF. They also play a key role in publicising impact achievements.

Evidencing impact is vital, especially for the REF, but it can sometimes be a problematic area for staff given time commitments elsewhere. We also offer specialist support and oversees data collection (e.g. on PURE) as well as exploring research opportunities through impact evidence collection.

PURE allows staff to view all of their current research activity including research outputs, activities and impacts on a single, secure system. It also feeds data into the AU Research Portal. The Aberystwyth Research Portal makes the very best of Aberystwyth University's staff and postgraduate research openly available online, free of charge. Content in the portal includes published outputs, postgraduate theses, project details, as well as records for other esteem activities. All academic members of staff can sign in to the system with their AU log in details. Please contact the Open Access and Research Data Officer, pure@aber.ac.uk, if you experience any problems.

Training

AU recognises the importance of providing training sessions for staff that focus on the different aspects of research impact.

We fund key opportunities for academic staff to be trained by outside experts. These sessions are also supplemented by in-house training offered by our Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Officers and other staff members who have been successful with their impact work and can pass on best practice.

Our Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Officers are given training to ensure they are kept up-to-date with developments in best practice, which they can then use when advising staff. This training ranges from sector-wide best practice workshops to ‘Train the Trainer’ sessions and training led by the UK Parliament and the Welsh Government.

This subsequently allows our Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Officers to deliver effective presentations and workshops on a regular basis, offer one-to-one consultations and help to raise awareness of research impact at both faculty and departmental level. Please get in touch with any specific training needs.

Reward and Recognition

AU also encourages impact activities by recognising and rewarding success in the following key ways:

Promotion on AU Webpages and other AU publications - Publicising and highlighting impact success stories on the AU webpages and in other University publications and publicity material.

Aberystwyth University Award for Exceptional Research Impact - The award recognises a key change or benefit that AU research has made to society.

There are two awards available; one for the Sciences and one for the Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities. Winners receive £500 for the purposes of supporting new impact activities. An individual or a group can be nominated for the award (open to all academic staff irrespective of contract type). Individuals can self-nominate or be nominated by colleagues. Details of closing dates will normally be communicated by email.

Awards are considered in relation to both the reach of the impact described, and its significance to the beneficiaries. The nomination form can be found here.