Fast Track Impact

This week, Mark reads from his forthcoming co-authored paper on evaluating impact, providing new definitions of research impact, reach and impact evaluation, an overview of national impact evaluations around the world, and a discussion of different ways of demonstrating causality between research and impact. He concludes by introducing the impact evaluation typology and methodological framework, which he will cover in part 2 next week.

Take your understanding of publics and stakeholders to a new level with the 3i's approach. This week, Mark introduces a new Fast Track Impact guide based on ongoing research, and explains how the interest, influence and impact of different groups may vary in relation to your research at a surprising number of (increasingly deep) levels.Read the guide and download the template

Take your understanding of publics and stakeholders to a new level with the 3i's approach. This week, Mark introduces a new Fast Track Impact guide based on ongoing research, and explains how the how the interest, influence and impact of different groups may vary in relation to your research at a surprising number of (increasingly deep) levels.

Read the guide and download the template at https://www.fasttrackimpact.com/single-post/2019/11/19/3-i%E2%80%99s-stakeholder-analysis-%E2%80%93-advanced-analysis-reveals-more-than-ever-before-about-who-you-need-to-work-with-on-your-pathway-to-impact

Many of us encounter individuals with deeply held convictions that run directly counter to all the evidence we know as researchers. It is easy to dismiss conspiracy theorists as crazy or irrelevant, but when we do so, we often inadvertently fuel the root causes of their beliefs. In this episode Mark explains some of the psychology that explains what attracts people to conspiracy theories, and suggests three things you can do to engage more constructively with the beliefs of this group, to deliver benefits for even the most hardened believer.

When did you last think about what you could do to enhance your career, make things easier for yourself or enable yourself to do new and exciting things you can’t currently do? What can you do to enable those around you to develop their careers? A new Researcher Development Concordat means UK research funders are increasingly going to ask us to make substantive investments in researcher development, and it should already make us start thinking about the expectations we should have of ourselves and our employers, so we start prioritising our own growth and the growth of those we’re responsible for. Find out more including examples of what Universities are already making available to their researchers across the sector on the Vitae website.

Announcing the winner of the Unsung Impacts prize! Listen to inspiring impacts that will never be celebrated by any University, based on the entries to the Fast Track Impact Unsung Impact Prize 2019. Read the article with images of the unsung impacts.

We’re all familiar with the publish or perish mantra, but for many of us it is less about the number of publications we produce, and more about their quality. The need for rigour goes with saying, but we are all striving for that one significant, original contribution that changes our discipline forever. In this episode, Mark uses the creative process of the poet, John Keats, to explore an unusual approach to pushing research beyond the current cutting edge.

How do you introduce yourself to others, and what do the labels you choose say about you? How do these labels influence how others perceive you? In this episode, Mark explores the many labels we can all choose from when someone asks us “what do you do?”, to show that we all have multiple authentic identities we can project to the world. He then describes three ways of thinking more deeply about these labels, so we can re-invent ourselves in ways that feel more authentic: integrating labels, re-labelling and transcending labels. Labels are important as we discover who we are and learn our trade, but if we allow ourselves to be defined by our labels, we will never grow beyond the expectations created by the labels we identify with. Hold your PhD or job description lightly if you want to be freed from the tyranny of everyone's expectations and the weight of your ego's demands, so you can transcend all the labels to become more authentically you than you ever thought possible.

Few of us have enough time to do all the things that are expected of us, and when we have more goals than we can achieve we will trade them off against each other in different ways. When we get it wrong, this can lead to important things never being done. But when we get it right, we can increase our focus and motivation and do incredible things with our limited time. This week Mark works through a paper on multiple goal theory to unpack some of the core lessons from his book, The Productive Researcher. You will understand how your many goals interact and why you prioritise certain things over others. By understanding this, you will be empowered to make clearer decisions as you prioritise your workload, and be happier with the work you do - and don’t do. Unsworth et al. (2014) Multiple goals: A review and derivation of general principles. Journal of Organizational Behavior 35: 1064-1078.

Interview with Bec Colvin and Chris Cvitanovic from Australia National University about their work with policy on climate change and first nations communities, in which they describe surprising research about the danger of generating too much trust with policy-makers.