The Impact Agenda – an ESRC-funded seminar series
This seminar series adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to examine and clarify the concept of ‘impact’ in the context of academic research in humanities and social science. The aim is to identify the processes that influence impact and explore mechanisms that maximise it.
There will be six one-day seminars over two years. Non-academic participants are integral to the whole series and junior researchers and PhD students will be invited to give 5-minute presentations on an impact-related aspect of their research in a 30-minute pre-lunch slot in most seminars.
Research context
Impact has become of increasing concern in academic life and these seminars aim to tease out how and why this has come about; the processes used by different disciplines and how academics can maximise the impact of their research. The first seminar will explore the contemporary framing to the process of thinking about the relationship between intellectual activity, academic institutions, and the public good.
Seminars 2 and 3 explore the process through which impact is achieved. Seminar 2 will consider how the impact of culture and cultural processes might be assessed and Seminar 3 focuses on the relationship between academia and government departments and processes by which knowledge is transmitted. Seminar 5, on new frontiers of impact, links closely to seminar 4 (on new kinds of technology) and also builds on seminars 2 and 3 by indicating how the relations between knowledge producers and users determine the way in which knowledge is used. The final seminar will identify successful examples of impact and provide some ideas for increasing impact in the light of the previous seminars.
Outline of seminars
Seminar 1 Impact: approaches and contexts
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester
Programme and recordings
Blog
Lead: Peter Wade and Penny Harvey, Anthropology, University of Manchester
Seminar 2 The ‘impact’ of culture and cultural processes: a dialogue
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Martin Harris Centre, University of Manchester
Programme and recordings
Lead: Jenny Hughes, Institute of Cultural Practice, University of Manchester
Seminar 3 The interaction between academic knowledge producers and government
Monday 4 July 2011
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Lead: Nikos Tzavidis, Social Statistics, University of Southampton and Angela Dale, CCSR, University of Manchester
Seminar 4 New methods and technologies to create and capture impact
Wednesday 19 October 2011
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Lead: Rob Procter, Manchester eResearch Centre
Seminar 5 What are the frontiers of impact?
Wednesday 22 February
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Lead: Ian Miles, Centre for Innovation, Manchester Business School
Session 6 Making an impact
Thursday 24 May 2012
Mordan Hall, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford
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Lead: Peter Halfpenny, Sociology, University of Manchester and Celia Russell, Mimas, University of Manchester