Fast Track Impact

This week Mark looks at emerging evidence that the impact agenda is creating institutional cultures that can lead to unintended negative outcomes. What are the motivational levers we can use to inspire colleagues to engage with impact for diverse and healthy reasons, and what mix of extrinsic incentives should accompany such a bottom-up and empathic approach to creating an impact culture? Mark defines three elements of an impact culture and asks practical questions that can enable you to characterise the impact culture of your own group, and decide what strengths you can build on and the things you might want to do differently.

This week Mark shows how you can use seven elements of powerful stories to plan for and create impacts that engage and inspire. He uses examples from The Lord of The Rings, and two impact from his own research on peatlands and research impact.

The seven points are: 1) Know who you want to benefit and treat them as the “hero” and you as the “guide” in your pathway to impact; 2) identify the external and internal problems your publics and stakeholders face and care about deeply; 3) be a guide who enables your publics and stakeholders to become the hero in their own story; 4) give them a plan to engage more deeply and learn about your work and/or act on what they learn; 5) make a call to action and give people concrete opportunities to put their newfound knowledge into practice; 6) identify what your audience has at stake if they don’t solve the problem - what is the cost of inaction or failure; 7) help people visualize​ what success might look like for them. To download the publics/stakeholder analysis template mentioned in this episode, visit www.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

In the first episode of Season 3, Mark shares two new definitions he has developed that will enable you to become crystal clear about what impact is (and is not). He then introduces his impact typology from the second edition of The Research Impact Handbook, and explains how you can use it as a checklist to identify impact goals for research proposals and to design an evaluation of your impact that captures the full depth and breadth of benefits that arose from your research. Get your copy of The Research Impact Handbook here or view online at www.fasttrackimpact.com/what-is-impact

In this final episode of the second series, Mark interviews Dr Jenn Chubb about how students can generate impact during their Ph.D​. This is a critical look at both the benefits and the challenges of working with publics and stakeholders alongside your PhD, and Mark and Jenn suggest creative ways you can pursue impact without compromising your PhD​. Read Jenn and Mark's blog, 5 ways to fast track the impact of your PhD.​

This week, Mark updates on progress towards publishing The Productive Researcher, which is out on 11th October.Read more about the process of self-publishing the book.

This week, Mark interviews Sarah Cook from University of Dundee and Liz Oughton from Newcastle University to explore the potential for researchers to collaborate with creative arts practitioners to generate new insights and impact as part of the research process. Rather than seeing arts as an "add-on" to help communicate research findings, is it possible to engage more meaningfully to enhance both your research and impact?CRE artist in residence programmeSarah CookLiz Oughton

This week Mark interviews researchers who have gone from having no experience working with business to working closely with industry to realize​ impacts from the research. Andy Pickard and Nigel Paul give Mark a tour of Lancaster Environment Centre which hosts the Centre for Global Eco-Innovation.

Mark interviews Ged Hall from The University of Leeds to find out how researchers can get support from professional services staff and other researchers to empower them to achieve impact. Whether you are a researcher or a member of professional services staff, this episode is packed full of ideas for working more efficiently with your colleagues, so you can achieve more impact, more effectively, in less time.​

This is the second week that Mark is reading from his forthcoming book, The Productive Researcher. In this episode, Mark explains how researchers can reconceptualize​ themselves to sharpen their focus and get better work-life balance, using an exercise that interrogates your identity as a researcher, the values connected to this and the amount of time you spend being different parts of yourself.Read Andrew Scott's bookFollow Phil Ward's award-winning blogFind out how Ana Atlee is changing the world

In this bonus episode, Mark talks about his latest paper, "A theory of participation". Although rooted in research on the environment, the paper provides principles that can help people working in any context understand how to design processes that deliver impact.