This toolkit is designed to equip you with the skills, knowledge, and mindset needed for a successful and impactful research career. The earlier you identify potential impacts and relevant stakeholders, the more likely you are to make a real difference in the world, and so we suggest you plan for impact from the outset of your project to ensure greater research quality, reach, and engagement.
By having a clear and roadmap, connecting your research inputs and activities you’ll be able to see the progression of you from the start of your project to the realization of impact. Even if you’re already in the midst of a project, it’s never too late to set impact goals and engage with relevant stakeholders.
Impact Planning
Impact planning is the key to ensuring that your research makes a lasting impact and achieves meaningful outcomes. Get started by answering these crucial questions to help you create a solid impact plan for your research journey (pdf template available here).
Impact Goal: What specific, measurable goals will your research achieve? How will your research contribute to addressing a larger societal issue or challenge?
Research Topic: What is the focus of your research? What is the scope of your research?
Type of Impact: What type of impact do you hope to achieve through your research? (e.g., social, environmental, economic, technological) How will your research contribute to advancing knowledge or solving practical problems?
Stakeholders: Who are the stakeholders that will benefit from your research? Who else may be interested in your research?
Success Measures: What metrics or indicators will you use to track progress towards your impact goals? What are the expected outcomes of your research?
Risks: What risks or obstacles may hinder the achievement of your impact goals?
Risk Mitigation: How will you mitigate the risks or obstacles that may hinder the achievement of your impact goals?
Resources: What resources do you need to achieve your impact goals? What resources are currently available to you and what additional resources do you need to acquire?
Timeframe: What is the expected timeline for achieving your impact goals? What are the key milestones in your research project and when do you expect to achieve them?
The Research Impact - Pathways and Proof workshop offered by the UQ Staff Development program provides additional resources.
The Knowledge Translation and Impact Planner (Instructional Guide and Planning Template) can also help guide your thinking through key aspects of knowledge translation and impact planning for your project.
Stakeholder Mapping
Your research impact plan must include identification of current and potential stakeholders who have a direct interest or influence over the outcome of your research. Stakeholders can range from funding bodies to community organizations, advocacy groups, businesses, and the non-governmental sector.
There are 3 key factors to consider regarding stakeholder mapping:
- Impact - who is likely to benefit from your research outside academia?
- Interest - what level of interest will current or potential stakeholders have in your research? Why?
- Influence - how much influence will stakeholders have to help, hinder or halt your research?
The Stakeholder Mapping template will help you identify, review and prioritise your current and potential stakeholders to assist with time management, engagement and communication activities, along with quality and potential impact of your research project.
The Research Impact - Pathways and Proof workshop offered by the UQ Staff Development program provides additional resources.
Engagement Strategy
Engaging with Stakeholders for Optimal Research Impact
Engagement is a crucial component in the translation of research into impactful outcomes and informed decision-making. By connecting with stakeholders and end-users, researchers can gather feedback and perspectives that inform the development and implementation of their project. This creates a shared understanding and increases public trust and uptake of research findings.
To maximize your research impact, consider these key drivers for engagement: funder requirements, mission-driven community engagement, and research partnership growth.
To ensure that your engagement efforts align with your overall research goals, focus on stakeholder-engaged best practices like effective communication, resource accessibility, transparency, shared governance, and balanced influence.
A well-crafted engagement strategy is the key to success. It should take into account moral, pragmatic, and strategic perspectives, and provide clarity of purpose. Here are six steps to follow when developing your research engagement strategy:
- Personalized Communication - Take the time to understand each stakeholder’s needs and preferences to ensure that you are communicating effectively and appropriately.
- Early Stakeholder Involvement - Consult with stakeholders early and often to gather feedback and ensure agreement on project requirements and deliverables.
- Thorough Planning - Conduct a comprehensive analysis to accommodate the interests, influences, and needs of different stakeholders.
- Strong Relationships - Building rapport and strong relationships leads to more effective communication and decision-making.
- Responsible Governance - Take shared ownership of the communication and engagement plan and understand everyone’s roles and responsibilities.
- Successful Implementation - Create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) objectives and regularly review and update your engagement strategy to account for changing stakeholders.
In order to engage effectively, there are three Research Project stages to consider:
- Before - Invest time and effort in identifying and engaging with stakeholders.
- During - Keep stakeholders informed with regular updates and opportunities for feedback.
- After - Maintain relationships with stakeholders post-research and ensure that your communication and engagement plan is well-structured and delivered to maintain stakeholder interest. Continuously seek feedback and evaluation to maximize impact.
By engaging with stakeholders at every stage of your research project, you can increase the likelihood of positive research outcomes and impactful results for everyone involved.