Can we get better at generating impacts from research? How can evaluation help?

By Dr Laura Meagher, Technology Development Group and Visiting Fellow, Innogen and
Dr Catherine Lyall, Innogen

Like all governments that invest in university research, the UK government hopes to see returns, not only in terms of academic excellence, but also in the form of economic benefits and other societal impacts including health, culture, education, justice and well-being1. This is particularly apparent as we await further details from the pilot exercise being conducted by HEFCE as part of the consultation on the Research Excellence Framework2 which proposes to assess, for the first time, demonstrable economic and social impacts deriving from academic research.