Socal impact research

Collated and edited by Ross Woods, 2026

This article proposes a societal impact model of institutional research strategy that is intended to achieve maximum effectiveness for practitioners in the field. This version of the societal impact model is a more ambitious than the one most universities currently adopt. Most institutions treat "societal impact" as a way of disseminating research after it has been completed. A truly practitioner-centred model treats society itself as the primary environment in which research is conceived, conducted, evaluated, and improved. In effect, practitioners become co-producers of knowledge rather than merely recipients of it.

In the broader discussion of institutional research strategies, this extension also distinguishes the societal impact model more clearly from the prestige and commercial models. Rather than optimizing for citations or intellectual property, it optimizes for sustained improvement in the capability of practitioners and institutions to address real-world problems.

Elements of implementation

1. Organise research around real-world problems, not academic disciplines. These problems naturally require multiple disciplines, so researchers should continue to belong to academic departments for teaching and promotion, but research funding flows primarily through challenge-oriented centres. Rather than creating centres based on departments (Education, Nursing, Business), create research clusters around persistent societal challenges:

2. Make practitioners equal partners. Many universities invite practitioners onto advisory committees. A stronger model is to make them formal research partners from the beginning, which dramatically increases the likelihood that findings are adopted. For each project:

3. Replace "knowledge transfer" with continuous knowledge exchange. Traditional research follows a sequence:

Problem → Research → Publication → Practitioner

Instead, use an iterative cycle, so that research becomes a continuous improvement process rather than a one-off study. It can also be expressed as a continuous cycle, where, unlike the traditional linear model, every stage feeds the next. It involves creating feedback loops, where every implementation should generate new research questions. Instead of research ending with publication, publication becomes one milestone within an ongoing cycle of improvement. Consider these examples:

Problem → Investigation → Trial → Reflection → Improvement → Further investigation
Community Needs → Co-design → Research → Translation → Implementation → Evaluation → Refinement → Community Needs
Research → School implementation → Teacher feedback → Revised intervention → Larger trial → Policy adoption

4. Build permanent field laboratories. Instead of laboratories containing expensive equipment, establish long-term partnerships. These become "living laboratories." Researchers return year after year rather than beginning from zero each project. This creates institutional memory and trust. Examples include:

5. Develop practitioner research networks. Instead of individual researchers collecting data, build networks of practitioners capable of participating in research. Teachers, nurses, social workers and pastors can all contribute observations, pilot interventions and evaluate outcomes. The university becomes the coordinator rather than the sole producer of knowledge.

6. Focus on implementation science. Many universities stop after publishing results, but implementation becomes a research topic in its own right. A societal impact strategy should ask:

7. Reward impact pathways, not only impact outcomes. Many impacts occur years after publication. Promotion systems should create pathways that eventually produce impact by recognising activities such as:

8. Develop "translation specialists". Many excellent researchers struggle to communicate with practitioners. Researchers generate knowledge, while translation specialists convert it into usable products. Research offices should employ specialists in:

9. Measure adoption instead of only dissemination. Instead of asking: “How many papers were published, use metrics that better reflect societal value. Ask: “How many organisations changed practice?” “How many schools adopted the program?” “How many hospitals implemented the protocol?” “How many government agencies used the findings?” “How many communities benefited?”

10. Build capacity in practitioners. The highest-impact institution is not necessarily the one that solves the most problems itself, but the one that enables practitioners to solve problems independently. That suggests the following operational pillar:

Workload Buyout → Relational Metrics → In-Kind Alliances → Translation Skills → Practitioner Capacity Building

Under this model, every project leaves behind something enduring—a trained network, a validated tool, a methodology, a dataset, or a community of practice—so that the institution's influence grows cumulatively rather than being tied only to individual research projects.

Institutional requirements

To make this model genuinely effective, several organisational changes are usually necessary:

Area Traditional university Practitioner-centred societal impact model
Research questions Academic interest Practitioner need
Project design Researchers Co-designed
Data collection Researchers Researchers and practitioners
Success metric Publications Measurable societal improvement
Outputs Journal articles Articles, tools, guidelines, training, policy briefs
Partnerships Short-term Long-term strategic relationships
Funding Competitive grants Mixed grants, contracts, philanthropic and community partnerships
Evaluation Citation metrics Adoption, implementation and measurable outcomes

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