Intellectual leadership

All researchers hope that their work will have an impact in the world. Public funding from governments for research requires that the research conducted has impact, in order for this funding to continue. Therefore, it is of great professional (and personal) value to prove that your research has an impact.

Different research funders will have different criteria for how research impact is defined. However, in the UK, the Research Councils define research impact by two categories: Academic Impact and Economic and Societal Impact.

To achieve this, research has to make a demonstrable contribution to academic progress, across and within disciplines. This progress must be significant in terms of understanding, methods, theory and application.

The demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy. Economic and societal impacts embrace all the extremely diverse ways in which research-related knowledge and skills benefit individuals, organisations and nations.

Funders are likely to ask grant applicants to consider the potential impact of their research from the outset.

Most funders require you to provide a report on the outcomes and outputs of the project at the end of your grant. This can cover the beneficiaries of the research, the staff employed on the grant and how it helped their personal development, publications, and potential and actual execution.

Your university will wish to know of the outcomes and outputs of your research. They will be able to help with exploitation and publicity and will wish to record the outcomes for future use, for example to provide case studies for reviews or assessment exercises such as the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF).

It is worth being aware of the existence of a number of potential barriers to knowledge exchange and collaboration between academia and external end user organisations. Barriers include:

• Lack of knowledge of potential partners, collaboration mechanisms and funding opportunities
• Differences in research culture and language
• Differences (or perceived differences) in research drivers
• Financial constraints, Intellectual Property (IP) and confidentiality issues
• Timescales, with universities often operating on significantly longer time scales than potential outside collaborators.

Publications are a crucial way to disseminate your research and to achieve recognition for your research team.

As publications are so key to disseminating research, as the leader for your research team, ensure you have a strategy in place for how you will approach publications. This includes discussing with your team how you will go about getting published; ensure everyone feels included so as to avoid anyone feeling that their work is not being recognised.

Authorship is usually credited to the individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the design, implementation, or interpretation of the research described in the publication.

Many disciplines, publishers and institutions have their own guidance or codes of practice addressing the importance of authorship. Become familiar with these for your publications’ strategy.

The journey to publish an article from conception to final publication involves many stages such as planning, drafting, editing, preparing tables, figures and illustrations, submission, responding to reviewers’ comments, re-submission and checking proofs.

Ensure you agree beforehand who in this process has control over what area in order to avoid disagreement amongst authors over certain aspects of content. Agree expectations at the outset and create clarity of understanding around each person’s contribution.

Sometimes during the publication process, roles and responsibilities will need to be reassigned to match individuals’ abilities and availability. For example, a researcher may be able to contribute significantly to early drafts of the manuscript but be unable to participate fully in later stages due to taking up a new position at the end of a fixed-term contract.

Principal investigators (PIs) need to be familiar with the expectations of their employers, research funding bodies and governments.

In the UK, the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has primary responsibility for UK research policy and funding.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the system for expert review of research in UK higher education institutions. Each assessment, based on institutional submissions, will inform allocation of research funding. REF results provide accountability for public investment in research and benchmarking information.

The European Charter for Researchers outlines the roles, responsibilities, and entitlements of researchers and their employers or funding organisations. It aims to strengthen and maintain the relationship between these parties and the career development of researchers.

The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers aims to improve recruitment, including making selection processes fairer and more transparent, and proposes different means of judging merit. It argues that merit should not be judged on the number of publications published alone, but by considering other criteria such as teaching, supervision, teamwork, knowledge transfer, management, and public awareness activities.

The UK equivalent to the European Charter and Code is the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers. It is an agreement between the funders and employers of researchers in the UK which aims to increase the attractiveness and sustainability of research careers as well as to improve the quantity, quality and impact of research. The agreement sets out the expectations and responsibilities of researchers, their managers, employers and funders.

The HR Excellence in Research Award is given to institutions which can demonstrate commitment to implementing the principles of the European Charter and Code or, in the case of UK institutions, the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers plus the requirements of the QAA Quality Code for research degrees.