Slides from the Fast Track Impact course. Find out more at: https://www.fasttrackimpact.com/impact-culture-online

1. Motivating change
in the metricized academy

2. Introduce yourself via
chat:
• Name
• Research or job
role
• What inspires you
most about what
you do in work
Introductions
Comment
in chat

3. Have you got:
• Agenda
• The Research Impact
Handbook (PDF)
• E-handout
• Red and blue pens (or
any 2 colours) and
paper
• Can I record the
session?
Everything ready?

4. 5 WAYS
to Fast Track your
Research Impact
What is our
impact
culture?

5. REF-driven impact cultures happen by
default. Healthy impact cultures happen on
purpose.
Question:Impact culture

6. Question:Impact culture
YOUR IMPACT CULTURE NEEDS
YOU
Culture change isn't
about getting new
people and
structures; it is about
changing how we
think and behave.
People make culture
and culture changes
one person at a time.

7. Question:
Publics and
stakeholders
Institution
Group
Me
Discipline
External
drivers
Impact culture

8. Impact
culture
Identity and
values (priorities)
External
drivers
and
assumptions

9. Impact
 Impact = benefit (ask “who
benefits?”)
 The good that researchers
do in the world
Impact

10. Capacity building
Understanding and awareness
Policy
Attitudinal
Other forms of decision-making and behaviour change impacts
Health and wellbeing Economic
Cultural
Other social
Environmental

11.  What inspires you about
being a researcher?
Curiosity
Engaging for
future impact
Seeing impacts
happen
Creativity
Challenge
External
validation
Pure
non-applied
Applied
research
Engaged research
Engaged research
Applied research
Pure
non-applied
Impact

12. Engage with impact if you
want to, for the right reasons Impact
Right reasons = Your reasons

13. ImpactUnsung Impacts
 Limited reach
 Unmeasurable
 Impacts for the
“wrong” people at the
“wrong” time or place
 Impacts from ineligible
or contested research
 Confidential impacts

14. Who has a stake in my research?
1. Stakeholder/publics analysis
template
2. Impact planning template
Tools to plan impact
Impact

15. See my blog for advance stakeholder analysis methods:
https://www.fasttrackimpact.com/blog
Who has a stake in my research?Stakeholder analysis
Impact

16. Who has a stake in my research?
1. Who is interested (or not)?
2. Who has influence (to facilitate or block
impact)?
3. Who is impacted (positively or negatively)?
Why?
Stakeholder analysis: 3i’s
Impact

17. Editable template to follow after training or visit www.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

18. See a worked example on my vlog: https://www.fasttrackimpact.com/vlog
Who has a stake in my research?Impact planning
Impact

19. Editable template to follow after training or visit www.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

20. Editable template to follow after training or visit www.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

21.  An action you are writing for yourself
 A reflection you want to remember
 A question
Question:Comments and questions
Comment
in chat

22. Identify bright-spots and issues with
your research culture:
 Identify an institutional scale to work at
 Discuss the diagnostic questions for the
three elements in turn
 List actions (where
possible focusing
on things within
your control)
Question:Break out room exercise

23. Researc
h
 Healthy impact cultures
prioritise research rigour
and ethics
 Responsible research and
innovation (RRI) that is
inclusive, open and
responsive

24. Researc
h
 How rigorous is my research?
 How inclusive is my research
(how early and widely to I
engage with likely users)?
 How responsive is my research
(do I envision future impacts,
reflect on risks and assumptions
and adapt to changing contexts
and needs)?
 How open and transparent is my
research (accessible,
understandable and open
data)?
Diagnostic
questions

25. Identity
and
values
(priorities)
 What priorities emerge at
the intersection between
your identity and values?
 What are the priorities of
[your group] and what
shared identities and
values do they express?
 If impact is not a priority,
what aspects of your
(individual or group)
identity or values (e.g.
curiosity or creativity) might
inspire you to start
engaging more?

26. Identity
and
values
(priorities)
 What are my professional and
other identities (e.g. researcher
and teacher, father and cyclist)?
 What values or character traits do I
enact in these identities (e.g.
curiosity and altruism, empathy
and competitiveness)?
 What does the way I spend my
time tell me about my priorities
(things I make time for or feel
frustrated about not having time
for)?
 Can engaging with impact express
part of my identity or values?
 How can I make time for the things
that are most important to me?
Diagnostic
questions
Personal

27. Identity
and
values
(priorities)
 How would I describe the most
common identities and values in
[my group]?
 What does my group ask me to
prioritise and what does that say
about its identity and values?
 Why do people in [my group]
typically engage with or avoid
impact?
 How (and what contexts) do people
in [my group] talk about impact
 How often do we talk about
impact?
 Do we mainly use “impact” or do
we have a richer vocabulary?
Diagnostic
questions
Group

28.  We generate research and
impact in overlapping
communities
Community
 We have varying degrees
of social capital (e.g. trust,
networks, reciprocity) in
each community
 Healthy impact cultures
rely on social capital in the
academy and beyond
 Do you invest as much in
social capital with non-
academic partners as you
do in your group or
discipline?

29. Community
 Characterise the working
relationship between academics
and professional services staff
working on impact?
 Do you trust that institutional
leadership on impact has the
interests of you and those you
want to serve at heart?
 To what extent do you trust this
of your funders, Government
and others who expect or
reward impact?
 Do interdisciplinary teams treat
those generating impact with
equal respect or are they seen
as an add-on?
Diagnostic
questions
Academic

30.  How much time do you spend
outside project meetings and
between projects with non-
academic partners?
 Do you return emails, calls and
messages on social media from
those beyond the academy who
engage with your work?
 Do you make unrealistic
promises to non-academic
project partners and how do you
deal with non-delivery?
 Do you tell people you meet at
workshops and events that
you’ll get in touch, but bin their
business cards weeks later?
Diagnostic
questions
Community
Non-
academic

31. Identify bright-spots and issues with
your research culture:
 Identify an institutional scale to work at
 Discuss the diagnostic questions for the
three elements in turn
 List actions (where
possible focusing
on things within
your control)
Question:Break out room exercise
Break
out

32. Share with the wider group:
 Key bright spots others could learn from
 Actions you’ve identified that might address
issues in your culture
Question:Chat and open mic
Comment
in chat
Open
mic

33.  What actions did you
identify?
 Things within my
control
 Conversations I need to
have with others
Question:Actions list

34. 5 WAYS
to Fast Track your
Research Impact
Building
impact culture
from the bottom up
Part 1:
Me and my group

35. Publics and
stakeholders
Institution
Group
Me
Discipline
Bottom up: me and my group
External
drivers

36. Cultures happen
between people.
Your impact culture
starts with you.
But how do you
manage competing
research and
impact demands?
Question:Impact culture
YOUR IMPACT CULTURE NEEDS
YOU

37. Question:Managing competing goals
Goals are connected in hierarchies –
activate high-level goals to enable connected
goals:
 Values (e.g. curiosity versus empathy)
 Identities (e.g. expert versus broker)
 Priorities (e.g. research versus impact)
 Tasks (e.g. paper versus policy brief)
Unsworth et al. (2014) Multiple goals. Journal of Organizational Behavior 35: 1064-1078

38. Question:Managing competing goals
 Align: find tasks that integrate multiple
priorities, identities and values e.g.
prioritizing a workshop to solve a policy
problem that I can write up as a paper
 Rank: decide which values and identities
are most important to choose whether you
prioritise research or impact tasks, and
stop feeling guilty about the trade-off

39. Question:Managing competing goals
 Your priorities emerge at the intersection
between your values and identity, and
dictate the tasks you prioritise
 To prioritise tasks that will generate
impact, you need to understand why
impact might be a priority for you

40. Priorities forest:
 Understand how your values and identity
shape your priorities, including your
motivation for impact
 Understand how your institutional culture
promotes or inhibits your ability to achieve
impact
Question:Individual exercise
Individual
task

41.  List your professional and
other identities
(combining/merging as
necessary)
Question:Priorities forest (part 1 of 6)

42.  Draw as trees, writing identities along the trunk
Question:Priorities forest (part 2 of 6)
 Make the
size of each
tree
proportional
to the
importance of
that identity
to you

43. Question:Priorities forest (part 3 of 6)
 Identify at
least one
identity
(tree) that
benefits
others (draw
some fruit
on it so you
can revisit
this later)

44.  Identify values that feed each identity, writing
them along roots to the relevant tree(s)
Question:Priorities forest (part 4 of 6)
 Start with your
answer to the
ice-breaker
question (what
inspires you),
or identify
character traits,
principles or
beliefs

45.  Looking at the largest identity trees (professional or
other), ask if their growth is being promoted or
inhibited by your current organisational culture?
 Colour those whose growth is being promoted blue
and those whose growth is being inhibited red (or a
bit of both)
Question:Priorities forest (part 5 of 6)
 Some identities
may not be
affected by
your work
culture (leave
blank)

46.  Is the growth of your root values being promoted
or inhibited by your current organisational
culture?
Question:Priorities forest (part 5 of 6)
 Colour roots
that are being
promoted blue
and those that
are being
inhibited red (or
a bit of both)

47. Where should change start?
 Identify actions that could promote the
growth of values (roots) or parts of your
identity (trees) that are being inhibited
(coloured red)
Note: some will be actions for your home life, and others will
be personal or institutional actions for your work life
 Identify actions that would (further)
promote the growth of your impact tree(s)
 Add to your Actions List
Question:Priorities forest (part 6 of 6)

48.  What actions did you
identify?
 Things within my
control
 Conversations I need to
have with others
Question:Actions list

49. 5 WAYS
to Fast Track your
Research Impact
Building
impact culture
from the bottom up
Part 2:
Institution and beyond

50. Publics and
stakeholders
Institution
Group
Me
Discipline
Bottom up: institution and beyond
External
drivers

51. Who do I interact with to generate impact?
1. Within my institution
2. Within my disciplinary networks
3. Non-academic partners,
stakeholders, publics?
Question:My impact community: Task 1
 Hard to reach groups?
 If you have a REF impact case study,
highlight beneficiaries
 If you’re not engaging much yet, add
people, groups or organisations you
would like to interact with
Individual
task

52.  What could you do to
strengthen your social
capital with those you
have identified?
 Who is doing what to
benefit groups outside
your REF impact?
 What more could you do?
 Revisit community
questions you didn’t
answer on p1-2 handout
Question:My impact community: Task 2

53.  What could you do to
strengthen your social
capital with those you
have identified?
 Who is doing what to
benefit groups outside
your REF impact?
 What more could you do?
 Revisit community
questions you didn’t
answer on p1-2 handout
Question:
Comment
in chat
Open
mic
My impact community: Task 2

54. 5 WAYS
to Fast Track your
Research Impact
Building
impact culture
from the bottom up
Part 3: Participatory
change

55. Publics and
stakeholders
Institution
Group
Me
Discipline
Where does change come from?
External
drivers

56. Where does change come from?
External
drivers

57. Top-down change
External
drivers
Workload
allocation
models
Annual
Appraisals
Promotion
criteria
Impact
sabbaticals
Impact funding
e.g. HEIF &
IAA
Extrinsic incentives

58. Top-down change
External
drivers
Implicit
conflicts of
interest
Attributable impacts
outcompete
evidence synthesis
Eroding trust
Impacts driven
by self-interest
(e.g. REF) not
public interest
Discontinued
relationships
Extrinsic incentives

59. Top-down change
External
drivers
Only 26% of those
involved in change
processes perceive
them to have worked
(6% when you ask
front line staff only)
Best case
scenario is
that it doesn’t
affect you
Sense of having
change “done to
us” rather than
being part of
something
Prioritises
efficiency over
enabling our
best work
Extrinsic incentives
McKinsey
(2017) The
people power
of transform-
ations

60. Top-down change
External
drivers
Words researchers use to
describe research culture
Wellcome
Trust (2020)
What
researchers
think about the
culture they
work in

61. Top-down change
External
drivers
researchers think that
creativity is stifled due
to research being
driven by an impact
agenda
75%
Wellcome
Trust (2020)
What
researchers
think about the
culture they
work in

62. Top-down change
External
drivers
researchers have
negative attitudes
towards REF157%
1 Weinstein et
al. (2019)
Real-time
REF review
2 Wellcome
Trust (2020)
What
researchers
think about
the culture
they work in
feel pressured to meet
REF and funding
targets254%

63. Top-down change
External
drivers
Top-down change
driven by external
drivers, handed down
via extrinsic incentives
has created the status
quo. More and better
incentives is not the
answer

64. Participatory change
Group
Me Intrinsic
motivations
 What if a change management process asked:
 What is preventing you doing the best work of your
career?
 What would need to change to facilitate your best work?
 What if you could already make some of these
changes?

65. Lessons from evolutionary organisations
 Start small, experiment and evaluate
 Survival of the fittest (ideas): stop or adapt what
doesn’t work; build on and replicate what does
 Participatory change works because
 It starts small and builds on evidence of what works
 Because you start small and low-risk, you can start
now, without permission (within reason)
 It challenges assumptions about what we can and
can’t do and fosters innovations in the way we work

66. Socio-technical systems
 New ideas for the
people by the
people
 Safe
spaces/niches
 Experiment, learn
and adapt
 Windows of
opportunity
 Mainstream new
ideas

67. Participatory change
“Managing the present to create a new direction of
travel is more important than creating false
expectations about how things could be in the future.”
Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge
 This is not a monolithic research culture led from the
top, but an evolutionary process with multiple
cultures, each aligned with different group values,
emerging together at different speeds
 One thing in common: people making things better
around themselves, pursuing priorities that align with
their identity and values

68. Question:Chat and open mic
Comment
in chat
Open
mic

69. Design your own experiment
Individually or in your break-
out room, discuss:
 How can you make the
actions safe to try?
 What resources/help will
you need?
 What you will try first, with
who and when?
 How will you know if it was
beneficial or not?
Break
out

70. Privately (to Mark) or to everyone:
 Write a message to your future self with at least
one action you want to commit to
 Write a message to someone you’d like to have a
conversation with about wider change
Provide your email and you’ll receive them back in
around a month to remind you to do your actions
and have your conversation
Question:Message to your future self

71. Get a reply from Mark to any query within 1 week:
send via Madie (pa@fasttrackimpact.com)
www.fasttrackimpact.com
@fasttrackimpact

72. Evaluating ImpactFeedback
www.fasttrackimpact.com/feedback-form

73. Read and discussFree follow-up training
www.fasttrackimpact.com/for-researchers