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Research Metrics and Impact: Broader Impact

This guide provides resources on bibliometrics, altmetrics and research impact; it covers author, journal, and article-level metrics to help you measure and enhance your scholarly influence.

What is Research Impact?

There is a lot more to research impact than just metrics. MBIE defines Research Impact as “A change to the economy, society or environment, beyond contribution to knowledge and skills in research organisations.”

For more information about what Research Impact is, and types of impact, see the What is Impact  Page on the University of Otago Research Impact Guide

This guide page will provide you with some useful resources to help you with planning for and demonstrating broader research impact.

Planning for Impact

Planning for research impact is important as it ensures you identify and integrate steps to increase impact across the research process. By strategically planning, you can identify key stakeholders, anticipate challenges, and design communication strategies to maximise positive outcomes. This can also increase the visibility and support for your research. Key steps include:

  • Engaging Stakeholders: Involve relevant groups early to shape research that addresses real-world issues.
  • Collaborating with Partners: Work with diverse collaborators to enhance the reach and applicability of your research.
  • Setting Clear Goals: Define measurable goals to track progress and demonstrate value.
  • Communicating Effectively: Share findings through various channels to reach and influence your audience.
  • Monitoring and Evaluating Impact: Continuously assess impact to refine strategies and improve effectiveness.

Below are some templates that you can use to help plan and record your research impact

Research Impact Toolkits

Some Research organisations have put together Research Impact Toolkits containing valuable information and resources to assist researchers with the impact process. Some good ones to look at are:

Impact Case Studies

Case studies effectively showcase research impact by providing real-world examples of how research benefits society. They make research and its impacts easier to understand, demonstrating the practical relevance and effectiveness of the work. Reading case studies in your field can be useful for gaining ideas on how others describe the real-world impact of their research.

 Impact Case Studies

 International

  • REF 2021 Impact case study database (UK based) Search for impact case studies submitted to the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. You can search for and filter case studies by criteria, such as institution, unit of assessment, and impact type. 
  • ARC (Australian Research Council Impact Studies) Data Portal  The Australian Research Council's Impact Studies Data Portal is a portal that you can use to search for case studies funded by the ARC. You can search for and filter impact studies by criteria, such as institution, field of research, and socio-economic objectives.

Sustainable Development Goals

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development agreement set 17 global goals to achieve peace and prosperity for all. University of Otago was the first New Zealand university to sign the international SDG Accord, and is actively contributing to these goals through its research, teaching and operations. The SDGs are an integral part of how we see sustainability within our sustainability strategic framework Tī Kōuka.

Credit where credit is due

We know that about one-third of all publications from Otago are identified as related to one or more SDGs. We also know that there are many more publications and citations picked up through the widely used keyword search methods.

It's important we better recognise the hard work of our researchers and take a "credit where credit is due" approach to getting these important contributions recognised. Below are tips to help the contribution of your research be recognised and enhance the link between your research outputs and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Identifying and linking keywords and the SDGs:

By including SDG keywords in your research, you can show how your research outputs support these goals and in turn these can be identified by publishers and linked accordingly. 

You can incorporate relevant SDG keywords in the title, abstract, and text of your research outputs, and also tag your publications with SDG keywords when you submit your work to a repository or publisher.

For specific examples of SDG keywords see these links:

 

Finding your research that is linked to the SDGs: 

  • Use Scopus to find if your research outputs are indexed to any of the SDGs. Note: You will need to have a SciVal or Scopus profile. 

 

 

Otago research contributing to the SDGs:

 

For more support with SDGs please contact your Subject Librarian or Toitū te Taiao | Sustainability Office