under development
Broader and Societal Impacts Professionals are part of a growth and dynamic field. These professionals support the mission of linking research to societal benefits in a range of ways that make them invaluable to research projects and programs including connecting researchers with key community, industry, and other external partners; helping to design and implement collaborative activities and programs; evaluating the impacts activities of a research program; and creating long-term connections between higher education institutions and the communities they serve. These roles of particularly crucial for land grant institutions that have specific responsibilities in the states. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently noted that "Leaders of land-grant institutions (university chancellors, provosts, and faculty senates) should formally recognize individuals who serve as boundary spanners or cultural brokers, system stewards, and convenors for their role in supporting the infrastructure and collaborative culture of their institutions, rewarding them through processes such as faculty tenure and promotion, staff annual evaluations, annual awards, and monetary prizes."
This section of the Toolkit for Research Impact focuses on resources for BI/SI professionals and the many, integral roles they play in linking research to impact.
Funder Terminology
Different funders use different terms when they discuss engaged research, societal impact, and other activities related to societal and broader impacts. Here we summarize a few examples of how different funders define their terms. When you are working with a proposal team, it is important to make sure that all members of the team are familiar with how the particular funder uses these teams, to ensure that the proposed activities align with the program goals.
| FUNDER | PROGRAM TITLE | DESCRIPTION | LINK |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDA-NIFA | AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems | The long-term purpose of the Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) RFA is to help transform the U.S. food and agricultural system to increase agricultural production while also reducing its environmental footprint. Achieving these goals will require transdisciplinary approaches to address current and future agricultural challenges within the context of the economic, societal, and environmental attributes of sustainability. | https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/funding-opportunities/agriculture-food-research-initiative-sustainable-agricultural-systems |
| NSF | Broader Impacts | By evaluating every proposal it receives according to its intellectual merit and its broader impacts, NSF ensures that publicly funded research has tangible benefits to society that go beyond increasing knowledge. | https://new.nsf.gov/funding/learn/broader-impacts |
| NOAA | Climate Adaptation Partnerships | The Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP) Program is an applied research and engagement program that expands society’s regional capacity to adapt to climate impacts in the U.S. The CAP/RISA program supports sustained, collaborative relationships that help communities build lasting and equitable climate resilience | https://cpo.noaa.gov/divisions-programs/climate-and-societal-interactions/cap-risa/ |
| Carnegie Corporation | Bridging the Gap Program | Corporation grantmaking supports university-based centers for academic-policy exchange, outlets that publish and disseminate policy-relevant scholarship and analysis, sabbatical year fellowships that place tenured academics in government roles, professional incentives to encourage policy engagement, and the development of ethical norms. | https://www.carnegie.org/programs/international-peace-and-security/ |
| WT Grant Foundation | Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence | This program supports research on strategies focused on improving the use, usefulness, and impact of evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. | https://wtgrantfoundation.org/funding/research-grants-on-improving-use-of-research-evidence |
| Wellcome Trust | Climate Impact Awards | We will fund transdisciplinary teams to deliver short-term, high-impact projects that maximise policy outcomes by combining evidence generation, policy analysis, engaged research approaches and communication strategies. | https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/schemes/climate-impacts-awards |
| American Institutes for Research | Opportunity Fund | The AIR Opportunity Fund will invest in locally driven projects that address disparities in education, public safety and policing, workforce development, and community health and well-being. We fund and foster partnerships with those who are directly affected by the inequities we seek to address and those who influence and drive decision-making. Our work incorporates diverse perspectives, experiences, and areas of expertise to shape approaches and solutions that are responsive to the communities we serve. | https://www.air.org/opportunity
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Funder Requirements
Just as they use different terms to capture the broad field of engaged and impacts-driven research, funders have different requirements for the level of engagement with communities and other societal partners in order for a project to be funded by their programs. As you develop proposals, it is important to be clear about the expectations for engagement so your team can plan effectively prior to writing the proposal and ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to sustain the engagement throughout the project lifespan. Below are some examples of different engagement expectations from different funders.
[to be added]
Planning Engagement Activities
Budgeting and Resources for Engagement and Impact
Collecting robust evidence of impact is important to maintaining credibility (we can prove that we did what we said we did!) and for improving future practice (what worked, what didn’t, why, and what can we do better next time?). There are many different approaches to collecting evidence of impact and it is important to choose a method that meets the goals of your project and is feasible within your project scope and timeline. There are a few principles to keep in mind for any evidence:
- Evidence of impact should be demonstrable; you should be able to provide specific examples to support your claims about impact.
- "Community partners are in the best position to describe their observation of the impacts of the partnership" (NASEM 2025), so focus your efforts on eliciting feedback from the people you have worked with and the people you intended to use your research.
- Although you need demonstrable examples, evidence does not always need collected through formal processes. Working closely and consistently with your partners can provide you with many opportunities to collect examples and evidence of impacts.
- In some cases, the best way to collect evidence of impact will be through formal data collection such as surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Be aware that some funders require formal data collection and analysis for broader and societal impacts activities; be prepared to incorporate those into your project from the very beginning.
- You do not need to demonstrate that you completely solved the problem you identified in your purpose statement – focus on showing how and to what extent you contributed to finding a solution and how the project helped to make change.
Impact Descriptors
Impact descriptors use our understanding of knowledge use to help us describe the many ways our research is contributing to positive changes in the world or for our external research partners.
| Category | Description | Impact Example | Impact Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conceptual | Research contributed to changes in people’s knowledge about or awareness of an issue | Your external partners report that the research findings are being discussed regularly at agency meetings; they are thinking about the implications for their program and how they might incorporate the findings into their practices | Your project involved collaboration with a local neighborhood organization to regularly test water quality in a stream running through the neighborhood. It has contributed to community members understanding pollution rates and pollution sources. They demonstrate this knowledge by doing presentations for other neighborhoods and are able to answer technical questions about water quality posed by their peers. |
| Capacity-Building | Research contributed to enhancing the skills, expertise, or resources of an organization or group of people | Through your research project, you created an online professional development course to help teachers learn to incorporate climate science into their high school classrooms. You have offered the class three times to cohorts of 20 teachers. In a follow-up survey, teachers reported that their students engage well with the material and their test scores have improved. | Your project developed a plan to share new research instruments with a smaller, R2 university in your region. As a result of having access to the instruments, faculty and students at the R2 have developed and held an advanced lab skills course for 40 students so far; published research findings based on work completed in the lab; and have just submitted their own funding proposal that will involve use of the lab space. |
| Connectivity | Research contributed to new or strengthened relationships, partnerships, or networks that endure after the project ends. | You were originally approached by a resource management agency for technical assistance 5 years ago. Since then, the agency has asked for your assistance with analyses two more times and you just collaborated on a successful funding proposal that will allow you to study an issue of significant concern for the agency. | In the first phase of your project, you worked closely with the sustainability office of your local municipal government to create an analysis of air quality specific to the region. After completing the report, your municipal partners shared the document in their network of sustainability offices. Since then, three more municipalities have reached out to ask to collaborate on analyses for their regions. |
| Instrumental | Research contributed to tangible changes to plans, decisions, practices, or policies | You worked with staff of a local wildlife management agency throughout your project. When it came time for them to update their species management plan, they cited your report and journal article in the plan. They also asked you and your co-investigator to review their plan to ensure that the research findings were explained accurately. | Throughout your project, you collaborated with a small group of high school science teachers to help them incorporate cutting-edge planetary science research into their AP science classes. By the end of the 3-year project, all 5 teachers had developed curriculum that met state science standards and they were actively using in their classrooms. |
| Social and/or Environmental | Changes to social and/or ecological systems, such as improvements in health and well-being or in ecosystem structure and function that result from changes in policy, practice, or behavior. | Your team worked closely with a local farmers' collective that focuses on growing local and drought-tolerant crops. As part of the project, your team helped the collective create a new marketing strategy. Over the course of three years, farmers in the collective saw a 15% rise in income from their farm products. | In collaboration with a local neighborhood, your research team installed a green stormwater capture site in a local park. The project gave your students as well as community members opportunities to practice landscape design and hydrology skills. The team has been monitoring the site for 2 years since its installation and has noted an increase in bird biodiversity as well as lower web bulb temperatures in the area immediately surrounding the site. |
Want more?
Meadow, A. M., & Owen, G. (2021). Planning and Evaluating the Societal Impacts of Climate Change Research Projects: A guidebook for natural and physical scientists looking to make a difference. http://doi.org/10.2458/10150.658313
Edwards, D. M., & Meagher, L. R. (2020). A framework to evaluate the impacts of research on policy and practice: A forestry pilot study. Forest Policy and Economics, 101975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101975
Meadow, A. M., Owen, G., Joshi, N., & Lodge Otto, E. (2024). Combining Impact Goal and Impact Descriptor Frameworks to Elucidate the Societal Impacts of Research: A Pilot Study. Research For All. https://doi.org/10.14324/RFA.08.1.03