Each month, an individual at a different ACU member institution is invited to write the introduction for this newsletter, providing an opportunity to highlight different perspectives. This month, Dr Andrew Perrin from Athabasca University, Canada, writes for us about the importance of maximising research impact. Dear , We need to redefine what success in research outcomes looks like to account for impact. As Associate Vice-President of Research at Athabasca University in Canada, I am due to publish a new academic monograph which will be read by exactly eleven people in my niche discipline – six of whom will do so to receive a free review copy for an equally paywalled journal publication. That leaves a readership of five academics – one for each year of the project. I am sharing this with you – my colleagues, friends, and peers across the ACU network – because it speaks to the pressing need to maximise the accessibility of research outputs. All research should rest in critical thinking, but more of it needs to be designed with creativity and content strategy in mind. Otherwise, our ideas will live and die in the ivory tower. To invest in this cultural change, Athabasca University has designed and launched the micro-course 'Designing Your Research for Impact: Emerging Methods for Mobilization', made possible in part with the support of an ACU Early Career Researcher Training Grant. This open course invites graduate researchers and early career academics to think beyond traditional research outcomes by expanding their profile and portfolios to include mobilisation through emerging technologies, popular media channels, and new mediums for communication. Does building capacity in these areas take away from the importance of the dissertation or monograph? Hardly. It means recognising that if our ideas and discoveries matter, they should be made meaningful to more than five people in 100,000-word forms. Knowledge mobilisation and impact planning are part of the research process, not apart from it. Now more than ever, our communities and society desperately need accessible, engaging, and informative information to make good decisions and have healthy debates. As academics, we can play a key role meeting those needs if we engineer our research outcomes for impact in and beyond the guild. Together, we can do and deliver research differently. Dr Andrew Perrin
Associate Vice-President, Research
Athabasca University, Canada |
