{"id":471,"date":"2018-10-29T10:22:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T10:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/hassimpact\/?p=471"},"modified":"2018-10-29T10:22:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T10:22:33","slug":"impact-from-critical-research-what-might-it-look-like-and-what-support-is-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/hassimpact\/2018\/10\/29\/impact-from-critical-research-what-might-it-look-like-and-what-support-is-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Impact from critical research: what might it look like and what support is required?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of REF 2021, Ruth Machen<\/strong> considers what impact from critical research could look like and how assessment frameworks could support, rather than squeeze out, space for critical research. Four modes of critical research impact are outlined: challenging policy; empowering resistances; platforming voices; and nurturing new critical publics. <\/em>Note that this was originally published on the LSE Impact Blog<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Critical research is often impassioned by a desire for social change. Yet as research that challenges the status quo \u2013 by unpacking the socio-historical contingency of meanings and exposing the reproduction of structural inequalities of power \u2013 critical research often faces a more challenging pathway to impact. As demands for demonstrating impact are increasingly woven throughout the funding and institutional architectures of higher education, Smith and Stewart<\/a> are not alone in raising concerns that the impact agenda could adversely affect critical and blue-skies research, favouring instead research that lends itself more easily to societal uptake.<\/p>\n

With the draft guidelines for REF2021 open for consultation<\/a>, now, perhaps more than ever, is a good moment to think about what impact from critical research could look like. And how assessment frameworks could support, rather than squeeze out, space for critical research. To this end, this post outlines four modes of critical research impact: challenging policy; empowering resistances; platforming voices; and nurturing new critical publics.<\/p>\n

Research impact: to engage or not?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anxiety around the impact agenda arises from the increasing instrumentalisation of knowledge, the corporatisation of UK higher education, and the relationship between assessment metrics and neoliberalism (Pain et al. 2011<\/a>, Pain 2014<\/a>, Gregson et al. 2012<\/a>, Olssen 2015<\/a>). As well as fears that impact will prioritise certain kinds of knowledge, there are also concerns it rewards particular types of researcher; academic elites with established reputations and influential networks rather than early-career or international researchers (Smith and Stewart 2016<\/a>). These are vitally important concerns. Yet some scholars also identify opportunities for \u201cdoing impact differently\u201d. Participatory Action Research (PAR) had delivered social benefits through collaboration with non-academic partners long before research impact became instrumentalised within academic assessments (Pain et al. 2011<\/a>). Pain in particular seeks to reclaim impact as \u201cwalking together\u201d, rather than \u201cstriking a blow\u201d (2014<\/a>; see also Evans 2016<\/a>). Likewise, Reed and Chubb suggest that impact is a provocation to reconsider our intrinsic motivations for research and epistemic responsibilities. Re-engaging with these, they argue, incentivises impact without research becoming driven by external incentives (Reed and Chubb 2018)<\/a>. Perhaps there is merit in heeding Back\u2019s argument that, as soon as someone suggests \u201cthis would make a good impact case study\u201d, we should be alert to how our attention is being directed. However, does pursuing impact necessarily put us, as Back (2015)<\/a> suggests, \u201con the side of the powerful\u201d?<\/p>\n

Exempting Laing et al\u2019s recent work in education (2018),<\/a> there is a strange silence around what impact in critical research might look like beyond PAR. Suggestions that not all research, and not all researchers, need to realise impact open space for critical research only through exception, negation, or omission. Instead, building from Pain et al.\u2019s emphasis on the \u201cpolitical imperative to restate the kind of academy in which we want to work\u201d (2011:187<\/a>), I focus on how impact might be pursued in ways that support and enrich critical agendas.<\/p>\n

What might critical research impact look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A review of the REF2014 impact case studies<\/a> yields the following simple typology, which might provide a useful starting point:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/strong>Figure 1: four possible modes of critical research impact<\/h5>\n

Mode 1: Challenging policy<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The UK Government Magenta Book<\/a> \u2013 the UK Government\u2019s guidance for policy evaluation \u2013 in principle endorses the need for critical approaches that unpack assumptions underlying policy and analyses. Confronting mainstream policy head-on could involve policy amendments by highlighting the implications of existing policies on particular underrepresented groups, geographies, or concerns. More transformative policy change is likely to involve election manifesto writers and\/or targeted social pressure rather than consultations within existing policy cycles.<\/p>\n