Learning to love the 'impact' sections of research proposals

Most funders will expect you to describe the anticipated impact of your proposed research project. They often provide a dedicated section of the application form for doing this – for example an ‘impact summary’ section.

For the many research proposals, particularly in the life sciences, real-world impact is fundamental to justifying the very point of doing the project at all. In some cases – charities in particular but also government health-research funders such as NIHR and Health and Care Research Wales – it’s pretty much all the funder really cares about. It’s their way of understanding what they’re actually getting for their money in terms of real-world change for the better.

This is all pretty straightforward. So why do the ‘impact’ sections of proposals cause so much head-scratching, consternation and angst? I think there are probably two main reasons for this.

The first is around academics’ motivation to apply for research funding and carry out research projects, which is not always focused primarily around impact. The reality is that this motivation is multi-faceted, and key motivators might include the fact that the applicant just really loves doing the science; has a loyal team of researchers whose jobs depend on continued funding; needs to secure a certain amount of research funding to gain promotion; or wants to show Bob down the corridor that they too can score large grants from prestigious funders. All good and noble reasons for writing a research proposal, but of course none of them will cut any ice with the funder.

The second reason is that, in reality, any single research project tends just to be one small piece in a much larger jigsaw. A stepping stone towards an eventual real-world outcome. It’s fairly seldom that one isolated piece of research leads directly to clear-cut, real-world change on its own.

For these reasons, plus the fact that most academics clearly like writing about their science but seem to dislike writing about all the other stuff that funders ask them for, the impact sections of a proposal often get left until last. This approach however flies in the face of the oft-quoted advice to “start with impact” – not just by writing the impact section/s first but actually starting your project planning by thinking about what you aim to achieve in terms of contributing towards real-world change.

So what should you write about in an impact summary? What can you say that will be honest, proportionate, realistic and achievable, while also piquing the funder’s interest in a way that will hopefully get them reaching for their wallet?

Summarising impact – what to cover in an impact summary

Every project should have a primary aim – if yours doesn’t then your proposal is probably in a bit of trouble. The project aim should normally encapsulate a very succinct statement of the intended impact – the ‘what’ that underlies the rationale behind doing your project and the short answer to the “what’s the point?” question.

I discussed some of the ins and outs of describing project aims and objectives in my last blog post. To recycle an example from that post, a hypothetical project in the area of cancer detection might aim to: improve outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer by determining whether the presence of elevated levels of (a biomarker) in the blood provides a reliable means of early detection, thereby reducing late-stage diagnosis rates and improving survival outcomes. The intended impact summarised very succinctly here is clear – fewer people dying of ovarian cancer because they’re getting diagnosed earlier. But it doesn’t tell the full story. The ‘impact’ section of a proposal should map closely to the project’s stated aim and should expand on it, while also indicating clearly how this aim fits into the broader impact jigsaw.

     

A recommended approach to writing about impact in a research proposal is to do the following:

1. Identify who will benefit from your project, or from the eventual impact towards which it’s intended to build.
2. Describe how they’ll benefit.

It’s often simplest to split the impact section into two parts that deal respectively with each of these points beneath appropriate sub-headings.

Who will benefit?

A ‘stakeholder’ is a person or organisation with an interest or concern (i.e. a stake) in something. In addition to the research team and their institution, there will normally be a number of stakeholders (or stakeholder groups) in a proposed research project. When you’re describing who will benefit from your research, don’t just talk vaguely about ‘key stakeholders’ – spell out exactly who these stakeholders are. In a typical life-sciences project like the ovarian-cancer example above, they might include:

• A particular group of patients, or people at risk of becoming those patients
• Those patients’ families and/or carers
• Clinicians and other professionals responsible for providing care services to the patients
• The organisation/s that employ the clinicians – for example the NHS in the UK
• The parts of government responsible for setting policy, strategy and/or legislation and regulations that apply to the care services – including devolved government across the UK
• Specific businesses that could benefit by exploiting the project’s findings – these might be partnering on the current project, or they could be lined up to collaborate in the next stage of bringing the innovation to market
• Whole business sectors – part of ‘UK Plc’ which may stand to benefit from a particular new technology developed by the research
• The funder (they’re paying for the research, so they have a clear stake in the project and its outcomes)

When writing about beneficiary groups it’s generally sensible to deal with them more or less in order of importance. Patients would generally top a list like the one above, and even for proposals that aren’t directly focused on patient outcomes it’s often people that matter most in impact terms (think jobs, environmental quality, long-term health and general well-being). It’s why the hypothetical ovarian-cancer project’s title mentions patients but not oncologists or the NHS.

Notable by their absence from the above list are members of the academic community – other researchers in the same and related or otherwise-connected disciplines. Certainly, nearly every research project will have considerable benefits for the academic community by way of new knowledge, new models and new methodologies produced. But for most funders, ‘impact’ actually means real-world impact that benefits society (e.g. by improving health) and/or the economy (e.g. by saving the NHS money). For this reason, they commonly ask applicants to write about academic beneficiaries elsewhere in the proposal. So as a general rule, don’t mention academic beneficiaries in your impact summary, and if you must then do so briefly and then simply refer across to the part of the proposal where they’re dealt with in more detail.

There is however an important reason why you might want to refer briefly here to your academic beneficiaries, and it’s linked to the realities of the impact jigsaw described above. Taking the example of the hypothetical ovarian-cancer project, there won’t actually be tangible benefits for any of the above beneficiary groups at the end of the project. In the best-case scenario, there will be some new scientific knowledge about the ability of a biomarker to indicate the presence of a particular type of cancer. At this stage, that information is only really of any use to the research community, who may in due course take it forward and – perhaps in partnership with NHS clinicians and pharmaceutical companies – progress it through further research and development towards the eventual goal of real-world impact. So in this example, securing effective academic impact in the near term will be a key stepping stone towards achieving the longer-term impact goals, and it’s important to show a clear understanding of this and of the need to make provision for ‘next-steps’ activities.

How will stakeholders benefit?

Once you’ve identified the main stakeholder groups then it should be a fairly simple matter to explain how you anticipate they’ll benefit. It’s important to be as specific as possible here, but also proportionate and realistic.

For the primary beneficiary group in the above example (patients), the nature of the intended eventual impact is very clear – better outcomes, longer post-diagnosis survival and fewer deaths from cancer. Ideally, it’s always nice to be able to quantify the size and extent of impact. For example, how many patients with ovarian cancer are currently diagnosed at a late stage, how many die each year, and what sort of reduction in these numbers might a new biomarker-based early-detection technique realistically achieve? This last figure will of course have to be an approximate estimate, but if you make sure this is reasonable, realistic and informed by the available facts then the reviewer is likely to accept it – they won’t have a better figure of their own.

Along with the patients themselves, their families will also see obvious benefits. These will include economic benefits if the incapacity or loss of a breadwinner is prevented.

For each of the other beneficiary groups you’ve identified, describe the anticipated ultimate impact that they’ll see from your work. Sticking with the ovarian-cancer project, clinicians will have access to better and more effective treatments for their patients, while the NHS could stand to benefit financially if there are cost savings associated with fewer people needing treatment at later stages of the disease. If there’s a national strategy in place for dealing with cancer, then the intended impact outcomes will have positive implications for the parts of government responsible for that strategy. And if bringing the new diagnostic test to market will include subsequent collaboration with industry then there’s clear potential for the industry partner/s – perhaps specific named companies – to benefit financially. Finally, if the funder is a medical-research charity then they will have specific charitable aims, a mission and a vision. So they’ll benefit directly from projects that serve their agenda.

One more thing: if you also have to write a ‘pathways to impact’ statement, then don’t just go and repeat everything that you wrote in your impact summary. The pathways to impact statement is not about what impact you anticipate achieving, but rather what steps you can reasonably take to maximise the chances of that impact happening. Writing this will be the subject of a future blog post.

And that’s about it. If you can list some specific real-world beneficiary groups and describe convincingly how they’ll benefit from your project then you should have the makings of a sound impact summary. If you can’t, and you’re not a theoretical physicist or mathematician, then you might just have to re-think your project.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and are in no way endorsed by my employer. Factual information and guidance are provided on a 'best-endeavour' basis and may become out of date over time. No responsibility can be taken for any action or inaction taken or not in respect of the content of this blog.