Emma Lancaster:

The Impact at UTS Podcast series is made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney, an audio production house funded by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research.

Martin Bliemel:

Research can change lives, solve real world problems, and inform us. But how do we make sure we’re doing research with impact, research that’s relevant and has an effect beyond the world of academia? You may have heard the “delivering research excellence with impact” tagline as part of the UTS research strategy. But it’s more than a tagline. It’s a way of thinking about research and doing it. So, engaged and impactful research is not limited to specific areas or types of research either. Instead, it crosses disciplines and professional boundaries. So, what is research impact and why is it important for us as researchers?

Julian Zipparo:

I think researchers have always been entrepreneurial to succeed in academia.

Michael Blumenstein:

We’ve been able to turn something that was developed in a laboratory, in a research facility, and they’re actually being used by lifeguards and lifesavers to keep our beaches safe. There’s something really tangible that’s come out of the research to actually help save lives.

Sarah Angus :

Funny enough, I do think of my role as almost like a translator and a fixer.

Julian Zipparo:

The research that you do is far more likely to be adopted by people outside of the academy if they’ve been along for the ride.

Michele Rumsey:

You can only really show true impact if you have those strong partnerships and relationships. Yet that very work is often invisible.

Craig Longman:

One thing that the academy gives you the capacity to do that doesn’t exist in practice is take the big picture and look at the system.

Larissa Behrendt:

If we’re talking really honestly about Indigenous-led research, it’s got to be led by Indigenous communities. We have to be answering the wicked problems that they have, not the problems that might intellectually interest us.

Gamini Dissanayake:

Yeah, actually after having the partner is an asset. It exposes you to the real life challenges. You know what questions to ask.

Paddy Gibson :

It’s never going to be enough to just go in and get a bit of data and get out. It always has to be in a relationship with someone.

Martin Bliemel:

These are just some of the voices we’re going to be hearing from in this series. And it’s clear, no matter the field UTS researchers are in the game to make a difference. I’m Associate Professor Martin Bliemel. I’m also the Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation at UTS. And I’ve had to practice saying that multiple times. In this series we’re going to explore what it means to do research with impact. You’re going to hear about some of the amazing work that’s going on at UTS. You’ll hear from some of your colleagues about how they have approached engagement and impact as part of their academic work, they’ll explore an impact framework and see how it could fit with your own research. And you’ll learn how to plan for and measure impact and record it. And when we’re done, I hope that you’ll view research impact through a new lens and be inspired to think a little differently, both about your own work and maybe the mission of the university. As our Vice Chancellor Professor Attila Brungs has pointed out, the way we work as researchers at UTS is changing.

Attila Brungs:

To be harsh on me and universities in the past, sometimes we had this great research. Came up with wonderful theories. We wrote a paper about them. We maybe flicked them to the government, and hoped the government would do something about them and then sit back feeling warm and fuzzy that we’ve helped society. That time has long passed. We have to use our knowledge, our existing knowledge, to actually engage with society for two reasons. One, because we have a lot of knowledge that can help society through challenges it’s facing. And two, to listen to society in ways we’ve never listened to before, because unless we listen and engage in a very different way than we’ve done in the past, we’ll be providing solutions to problems. No one really cares about, and that’s a complete waste of time, money and resources at a period of history, when you cannot afford to do that,

Martin Bliemel:

Engaging with society and applying academic knowledge sounds well and good, but what does it mean in practice? What exactly do we mean with the word ‘impact’ when it comes to research?

Julian Zipparo:

Impact is essentially the benefits that accrue from our research to the broader society. It’s also a way that our research as institutions gets evaluated and thought about.

Martin Bliemel:

That’s, Julian Zipparo, he’s the Executive Manager of Research Engagement in the UTS Research Office.

Julian Zipparo:

Doing research that’s impactful is part of the DNA at UTS. It’s part of the reason that we exist as a university to do work with public benefit. The reason it was built into the research strategy is to have a research impact requires deliberate effort. So, in some cases, our research will be an impactful for serendipitous reasons, but more and more we’ve come to realise it requires deliberate effort. We’ve trying to deliberately create a pathway from the research to the public benefit.

Martin Bliemel:

Increasingly the outcome of economic research is not solely being judged on the basis of publications, citations, or research grants. We’re more than our H-index. Instead, research outcomes include consideration of the broader benefits and values to society. Exactly that societal impact is probably the intrinsic motivation that drove people in their research careers in the first place. I mean, just thinking of the kids books I read to my kindergarten and second grader, like The Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls or Little Miss Inventor, the reason these people are mentioned in these kids’ stories, isn’t because of the H- index. It’s not because of their publications or citations. It’s because of what they’ve done, what they’ve come up with, how it’s been picked up by society and the value it’s created and how it’s changed society – well, hopefully for the better. That leads us to Julian Zipparo, who took some time out of his day to sit down with Impact Studios, producer, and journalist, Cassandra Steeth to explain exactly what it means for academics to do impact led research.

Cassandra Steeth:

Julian, let’s dive straight in. Can you explain to me the different kinds of impact that research can have?

Julian Zipparo:

I think it’s important to acknowledge that there’s scholarly impact, which remains really important. And so what that is, is essentially making a contribution to your discipline area. The measures for scholarly impact are relatively well developed. But I think the answer to what different types of impact there are, is also the answer to the question, how many different types of change can you see and make in the world? There’s all sorts of different types of impact. We know of economic impacts that can be made. Sometimes they’re a little bit easier to measure – increased productivity, et cetera.

Julian Zipparo:

There are environmental impacts that can be made. Improvements in terms of environment, something particularly important in the modern age, you could argue. There’s also a social and cultural impact. And something that I noticed was, often when thinking about impact, people will think about the most grandiose and spectacular example and be a little bit disheartened by it. Not everyone is going to win a Nobel prize. Not everyone is going to revolutionise quantum computing. But something that I realised is, there’s a whole lot of people doing research that makes many, many different types of effective, positive change to the world.

Cassandra Steeth:

Okay. If research impact is about problem solving or creating positive change in the world, how has research impact different to research engagement?

Julian Zipparo:

So, impact is the demonstrable benefit of your research on society. Engagement is a pathway to getting to impact. And I think it’s important to understand that in some cases, impact will happen serendipitously. Or you’ll go away into your lab and do a piece of groundbreaking research. But what we’re coming to understand is, to get to a place where your research has impact and benefit, you have to bring people along for the ride and that’s where engagement is important. And thinking about who are the audiences who could potentially benefit from the work you do at the very beginning of the process is actually really helpful. A because you can bring them in, you can generate their interest in your research, but B at the end of the day, after your research is finished, they’re far more likely to be interested in the outcomes and potentially adopt them.

Cassandra Steeth:

Impact is a more likely outcome of engaged research. Research designed in collaboration with research end users, whether it be communities or industry. And if impact is a new way of measuring research, what was happening before?

Julian Zipparo:

Historically the research that universities has done has evolved through a couple of different trends. So, at first, what was of interest was how productive are we? And so we came up with all sorts of mechanisms for counting publications that result from research to show and demonstrate our productivity. Following that at the point where we realized that that creates all sorts of strange perverse incentives like publishing a lot of stuff that’s not great, the sector move towards concentrating on quality and excellence. So, not just how much research do you do, but how good is it? And the latest shift in that evolution is, impact. Now that we’ve got all sorts of mechanisms for understanding how good the research is that we’re doing, we want to know. So what? What difference does it make to society? What benefits is it having?

Cassandra Steeth:

So, what you’re saying is in the last few decades, universities have been asked to demonstrate the outcomes of their research in terms of productivity, like how many publications or grants researchers have had. But now that it’s turning more towards what difference the research is having in the world is this change part of something bigger?

Julian Zipparo:

The change is part of a bigger picture where we’re having to justify our benefit to the public. We’re a public purpose institution as a university. And so we exist to benefit the public. The funding that we receive for research. I think the last time I read it, it was around 60% of it comes from government sources as a sector needs to be justified. And particularly now where there’s constraints on what can be invested in. And so universities have had to get a little bit better at demonstrating what value for money, the public purse getting for investment in research. One of the beautiful things about UTS and I’ve only been here for one year is I’ve noticed that, that’s not a shift for UTS. For some institutions, it’s a bit of a shift where they’re focused more on the fundamental disciplines. Whereas at UTS, public university of technology as the VC always reminds us, it’s built into our DNA that we want to be doing research and education that’s impactful and beneficial for society.

Cassandra Steeth:

And if we’re saying this shift to measuring research impact, what do you expect to be the benefits of this?

Julian Zipparo:

I think there were lots of flaws with the old way of measuring value. And so for example, researchers in the humanities and social sciences, will tell you that counting publications is not a demonstration of their success. And it’s also not a level playing field. If you look at a publication in the area of physics or astronomy, there’s 40 authors on there. And so the time and effort that it takes can be quite different to prepare different kinds of publications. So, to me the move and the shift towards thinking about impact, it’s positive in that sense. It kind of democratises the process a little bit as well of judging value on research.

Cassandra Steeth:

So, when is the best time for a researcher to stop thinking about impact?

Julian Zipparo:

We as support staff for research in universities are spending more and more time trying to encourage researchers to think about impact at the very outset of their research projects. People are far more responsive when they’re involved in your research, particularly from the beginning of the process. Now having said that it’s quite difficult to plan for impact from the beginning. Sometimes you can be shooting for a particular type of impact and the research by its nature will take you in new and interesting directions and will lead to a different kind of impact. So, just by planning at the beginning, doesn’t mean it’s going to all happen the way you plan it. But we certainly find that it helps researchers to frame their projects in ways which usually end up in them being utilised or adopted

Cassandra Steeth:

What are the benefits of working with end users from the outset of research?

Julian Zipparo:

So, the benefits of working with end users from the outset are multiple. I think it can stimulate thinking on problems and often talking to people who are interested in similar problems to you, coming from a different perspective can bring you a different perspective. It can lead your research ideas into new and interesting directions you may not have actually thought about. And so, if you want your research to make a difference to people, bringing them along and having a conversation from the outset is the way to do it.

Cassandra Steeth:

Impact can be measured by who adopts it, but to play devil’s advocate here for a minute, some researchers may argue that they have limited control over who actually adopts their research. So, is it fair for them to be measured by something that they have limited control over?

Julian Zipparo:

We don’t have direct control over adoption, but we do have indirect control. And there are things that we can do to influence adoption and impact. And the biggest one is engagement. By engaging with end users from the beginning of the research process and throughout, we’re far more likely that they adopt and take on board the things that are learnt throughout the research. So, while it is fair to say that it’s difficult to control for impact, I think researchers do have a role to play and do have the capacity to indirectly influence the outcomes of their research and how they’re utilised.

Cassandra Steeth:

When you thinking about impacts there’s an increasingly strong argument to have relationships with industry government or community, but what about the independence of that research?

Julian Zipparo:

I think researchers are actually good at identifying and understanding where research is going to be used and utilised in the right ways. Increasingly we’re put under more and more pressure because of that funding model to look for diverse sources of funding. And so, that does create a bit of a tension. In some institutions it’s quite clear that research strategies are geared towards increasing research income and diversifying research income sources, which is understandable. All universities want to do as much good research as possible. But I think there’s a danger if it ends there and the funding of research actually becomes the goal and the end in itself for an institution. So, again that’s, what’s good about UTS. We’ve recently released an institutional research strategy and you’ll see that it’s not about that. It’s not about, “let’s get more money and let’s bring it in.” The focus of it, is “let’s engage in genuine knowledge exchange and do research which is impactful.”

Cassandra Steeth:

In your view, Julian, is there a best practice way to measure impact?

Julian Zipparo:

I don’t think there is a best practice way to measure impact, but something that we’ve certainly learnt as a sector is it’s not something that’s easily quantifiable and counted. And so, when the Australian Research Council created the first assessment of Australian University Research Impact and Engagement, what they decided was, “we need universities to provide us with narratives.” You need to actually explain the research that you’ve done the outcome and the benefits that it’s had and provide us a bit of evidence. And so what we learnt from that was it can be done in countless ways.

Julian Zipparo:

It varies widely between disciplinary areas, but it depends on the creation of an impact story. So, research impacts stories take on different forms. We certainly had to do them as part of the impact and engagement assessment, but increasingly researchers are being asked for the potential benefits for their work in research grant applications and other forums. The important aspect of impact stories I think is understanding the problem from the perspectives of the audiences that you’re trying to reach. And so being able to talk about your research in a language that’s accessible, and by engaging with people with an interest in your area, you often find that they talk about the problems in different sort of ways and using different languages. I think it’s important that researchers understand those languages. And when we’re seeking to communicate the impact of our research, that we’re mindful of doing it in nuanced ways that suit our audiences.

Cassandra Steeth:

So, in essence is a research impact story, a brief summary of what your research is and what kind of impact it would have and who might adopt it?

Julian Zipparo:

That’s right. So, a research impact story essentially presents your idea and usually tells someone like a funding body, what it is you plan to do who the audiences are that are of interest, how are you going to engage with them? And what’s the benefit and the outcome that’s going to be achieved for them.

Cassandra Steeth:

And what are your top tips then Julian, for researchers to communicate their research impact to funders?

Julian Zipparo:

I think the first thing is to understand from their perspective, understand the audience that you’re trying to reach and who is it that is actually reading your impact story? So, in grant applications, that’s relatively well-defined. You have colleges and people who are essentially peers in your discipline area who are going to make assessments, but increasingly you’ve also got end users and industry, including on grant assessment exercises. And so the most important thing is: remember your audience, try to understand their perspective and the problem from their perspective. How it is they talk about problems and what they’d be interested in hearing about.

Julian Zipparo:

We’ve done lots of really valuable research in universities that has sat on the shelf and potentially not resulted in broader benefits. So, where we were too focused on things like counting our publications and other measures, there’s a chance that there were lost opportunities and there was lots of research that was potentially being done in universities, which could have had a broader benefit to society, but which didn’t. And so, I think it’s important that we think about the purpose of ourselves as an institution. And just continue to remember that we are about public benefit and research is really about solving problems that society is trying to grapple with.

Martin Bliemel:

Thanks to Julian, we now know research impact is both scholarly impact the knowledge you’re contributing to our field. And its demonstrable contribution to the economy, to the environment and society beyond the academy, as you have the knowledge exchange with non-academics and see that the knowledge is useful and valuable and mutually beneficial, that’s also often a natural segueway to have the more frank or formal discussion around funding research. Too often there’s the perception that researchers are a free resource that’s available like water on tap available anytime. But actually researchers and researchers’ time and funding is not like that. Our time’s usually fully booked and it’s subsidised through teaching. So circling back, making a difference takes careful planning and engagement. That’s built into the research project from the very beginning of the research process. So, by engaging with non-academics from the beginning, maintaining those relationships, you’ll greatly increase your chances of having the people act as advocates for your work too.

Martin Bliemel:

If you’ve ever published an article and been asked about including a section on the implications for research, but also implications for practice, the dirty secret is that we all know no practitioner reads those implications for practice sections. They’re often just kind of bolted on, but now thinking through that implication for practice section, I can think of it in a much more nuanced way and really think through like, what is the impact of the research? And by better understanding your own research impact and the implications for practice and thinking about how to more clearly tell your research impact story in an accessible way to multiple audiences, including those outside academia, you’ll be better placed to pursue your research and maximise the chances of both getting publications and further funding. Impact Studios, producer, Cassandra Steeth has some key takeaways for you.

Cassandra Steeth:

So, first you want to make sure you’ve clearly established the links between your research impact or the benefits that have come from it. Think about it as if research is a key ’cause’ and impact as the ‘effect’. Remember the impact of your research can emerge naturally, but it’s better if it’s planned from the very start of your project. For instance, when you engage with potential end users and beneficiaries from very early on, this could greatly increase your chances of uptake from your research outcomes. Also, it’s important for researchers to understand the difference between prospective impact and actualised impact. We need researchers to become fluent in describing the change you want, but also better at the nuts and bolts of recording impact, measuring it and describing it when it happens. And when it comes to your impact narrative, you need to articulate how and why specific groups have benefited from your research. Plus provide evidence of your research significance and impact. And finally, don’t forget you want to make your impact narrative easy to understand. Think about the issue from the perspectives of your audience and make sure your language is accessible and engaging.

Martin Bliemel:

Speaking of engaging, next time on impact at UTS, we tackle research engagement and we’ll hear from two UTS researchers at the top of the game on how they build engagement and impact into the research.

Larissa Behrendt:

So it’s not enough for us to say, we think our research will help Aboriginal communities because what we want to do will have benefit. It’s a different fundamental starting point that says what just the community want and how can we help them get what they want. And in the process of that, have them own the results and be building capacity within the community

Martin Bliemel:

That was Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt from the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research. Larissa was the joint winner for the UTS Medal for Research Impact in 2019. And we’ll be talking with Associate Professor, David Suggett, who leads the Future Reefs Program in the Climate Change Cluster at UTS. David and his team have found a small solution to a big problem that’s facing the world’s biggest reef. And that solution came by engaging those whose life and livelihoods are tied to the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

David Suggett:

It’s a problem that’s galvanised a really big partnership in community. It doesn’t actually change the kind of science we do. You know, it’s just that we’ve reframed the questions to that of the end user or the stakeholder or partner. Rather than me as a scientist sitting in my ivory tower thinking what would be a really interesting question to ask because it’s actually been just reorientating the perspective.

Martin Bliemel:

Thanks so much for joining me on this inaugural episode of impact at UTS. If you’re interested to learn more about research impact, head over to the UTS Reshub website, which is reshub.uts.edu.au. There you’ll find the newly created research impact module, where you can learn more, find tools and explore research impact in relation to your own work. I’m your host, Associate Professor Martin Bliemel you’ve been listening to Impact at UTS.

Emma Lancaster:

At Impact Studios, we work with the best scholars to embed audio in the research process, making one of a kind podcasts that entertain inspire and create change. The production team live on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation whose lands were never ceded. Thanks to everyone who made this series possible. To our resident impact and engagement expert, Julian Zipparo. For the brains trust in the UTS Research Office, including Catherine McElhone and Scott McWhirter. Thanks for all your erudite thoughts and comments. To our wonderful host Associate Professor Martin Bliemel and of course the team at Impact Studios. Cassandra Steeth our journalist and audio producer, Allison Chan, our audio producer, Adrian Walton and Frank Lopez our sound engineers, Ben Vozzo the Impact Manager. Impact Studios Executive Producer Emma Lancaster, and Impact Studios Managing Director Tamson Pietsch.