Achieving Impact

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is crucially important for the UK Higher Education sector, with one having recently been carried out in 2021. 'Engagement & Impact' will comprise 25% of each Unit of Assessment’s (UoA) submission in REF 2029.

The funding bodies’ shared policy aim for research assessment is to secure the continuation of a world-class, dynamic and responsive research base across the full academic spectrum within UK higher education. We expect that this will be achieved through the threefold purpose of the REF:

• To provide accountability for public investment in research and produce evidence of the benefits of this investment
• To provide benchmarking information and establish reputational yardsticks, for use within the HE sector and for public information
• To inform the selective allocation of funding for research 

HEIs are assessed across three key criteria: contribution to knowledge and understanding, engagement and impact and people, culture and environment, worth 50%, 25% and 25% of the overall profile respectively for REF 2029.

Engagement and Impact will be assessed by the REF in terms of 'rigour', 'reach' and 'significance':

• Reach - how widely the impact has been felt
• Significance - the degree to which the impact has enabled, enriched, influenced, informed or changed the performance, policies, practices, services, understanding, awareness or well-being of the beneficiaries. That is, how much difference was made to the beneficiaries

REF sub-panels assess the reach and significance of impacts on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life that were underpinned by excellent research conducted in the submitted unit.

All the top scoring case studies from both REF 2014 and REF 2021 provided examples of strong corroborating evidence to demonstrate both the reach and significance of their impact. 

Reach is considerably easier to evidence than significance, not least when it comes to claimed impacts of public engagement.

The grading below was used for both REF 2014 and REF 2021. We await the final guidance on submissions for REF 2029. 

Grading	Description
Four Star	Outstanding impacts in terms of their reach and significance
Three Star	Very considerable impacts in terms of their reach and significance
Two Star	Considerable impacts in terms of their reach and significance
One Star	Recognised but modest impacts in terms of their reach and significance
Unclassified	Either little or no reach and significance; or the impact was not eligible; or the impact was not underpinned by excellent research produced by the submitted unit

Impact case studies submitted to REF 2014 and REF 2021 are available in online databases:

• REF2021 impact case study database
• REF2014 impact case study database

Nearly all 2014 and 2021 impact case studies are available in this database (apart from those case studies marked as 'not for publication'). Some of the case studies have also been redacted for confidentiality reasons. 

You can also read about some of AU's impact case studies.

We've included some links to 4* impact case studies from REF 2014 and REF 2021 below. 

• Top-scoring impact case studies from REF2021 by UoA
• Top-scoring impact case studies from REF2014 by UoA

You can also ask our Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Officers, research@aber.ac.uk,  for more examples of both low-scoring and high-scoring case studies from REF 2021 and REF 2014. 

Lessons from REF 2014 and REF 2021:

• Impact goes beyond dissemination and / or public engagement
• Good impact did not equal a good case study: a good impact case study required a clear narrative and clear linkages between underpinning research and the impact claimed
• Clear articulation of users and beneficiaries
• Using the language from the REF guidelines made it easier to read and assess individual impact case studies
• Significant effort is required to complete an impact case study

Strong impact case studies provide:

• Concrete evidence of the claims made with regard to both reach and significance, including who benefitted and how
• Evidence by research outputs and robust data that explicitly reflect the relationship between the research process, finding or product and the impact achieved in the public domain
• Clear and compelling narratives linking the research programme to the impact claimed
• Verifiable evidence (qualitative or quantitative) to support the claimed impact (and, if research at multiple HEIs had contributed to the same impact, evidence of the contribution of the submitting HEI); and (where appropriate) the spread of the impact beyond the immediate beneficiaries to a much broader and possibly global audience
• Clearly identified beneficiaries of the research, offering concrete evidence of reach and/or significance to support the narrative, and a discussion of the wider context of engagement
• A good scoring impact case study is based on strong impact, which has been planned and evidenced. This is described in further detail in a blog "How to turn a 3* impact case study into 4*" by Bella Reichard. 

Note: Less persuasive case studies did not always effectively demonstrate the link between the underpinning research and the benefits claimed and were graded accordingly (some as unclassified where no material link could be ascertained). Certain information that was not clear 'left it to the assessor to identify the eligible impact, which was a risk to the submitting institution as the information could be misinterpreted'.