Right on Q: Unravelling the complexity of research impact

The value of research-based knowledge is a core concern of universities, which face ongoing demands to be relevant and have impact.

Universities continue to discuss and debate what “impact” is, beyond nuanced differences within and across disciplines.

This is not only because impact features in some university rankings. The ARC defines impact as “the contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture, beyond the contribution to academic research.”

There is complexity to defining and measuring research impact; it’s about negotiating push and pull factors when thinking about research dissemination, how research impact is framed, and how research is used.

It’s also about collaborating for impact.

The Monash Q Project has been exploring this question of impact within the field of education by investigating the use of research evidence in Australian schools.

A five-year study involving more than 2100 Australian teachers, school leaders and system leaders, the Q Project has generated distinctive insights into how research impact can be strengthened.

Research impact needs “pull” as well as “push”

Understandably, efforts to increase impact often focus on enhancing the dissemination of research into more accessible formats.

However, the Q Project’s work makes clear that such research “push” measures need to be combined with support for research “pull”. That is, to strengthen research impact, it’s critical to support research users to build their capacity to engage with and implement research evidence productively within their contexts.

Research impact needs to be seen as a “professional learning challenge” as well as a “knowledge transfer challenge”

It’s common for research impact to be framed as a knowledge transfer challenge, such as in phrases like “connecting research and practice”.

The Q Project’s work highlights that research impact is also a professional learning challenge, in which the use of research is a skilled and professional process.

Therefore, a key focus for strengthening research impact needs to be fostering organisational cultures that support ongoing professional learning and improvement.

Scholarly outputs are just the beginning of communicating results

One of the key pillars of the Q Project is to engage and communicate to multiple stakeholders. Beyond scholarship, we produced research and practical tools and resources that people use (in schools, systems and other actors seeking to improve education).

About 40 freely available professional publications have been complemented by educator resource packs, two professional learning courses, and a self-assessment tool promoted through professional associations and education peak bodies.

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Read more: Putting education research into practice: The search for common ground among educators

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Communicating research beyond the academy is important to demonstrate relevance. Our reports and summaries aim to translate core findings that are useful to educators and systems, in accessible formats, with positive results.

Educators have reported that their involvement in our project enabled them to implement teaching practices in the classroom that directly improved student outcomes. Another system actor described Q’s presentations and resources as “concise, to the point and cut through. They don’t dumb it down, but it is still accessible.”

Research impact needs ‘quality use’ as well as ‘quality evidence’

Research organisations concerned with research impact are quite rightly focused on increasing the generation of high-quality research evidence. The Q Project’s Quality Use of Research Evidence (QURE) Framework, however, shows that research impact requires not only high-quality evidence, but also high-quality use of that evidence.

An important aspect of strengthening research impact therefore needs to be supporting and modelling “thoughtful engagement with and implementation of appropriate research evidence”.

Collaboration is key

Aside from schools, teachers and school leaders, we’ve sought collaborations in several education systems to develop resources that cut across jurisdictions. We intentionally worked with national and international organisations at the intersection of policy, research and practice, such as the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, and the OECD.

Such partnerships are founded on a two-way influence.

Research Week is a chance to celebrate our successes as a leading research-intensive university. It’s also a chance to reflect on how we engage those impacted by or using our research, and how we can better define and amplify impact in the future.

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Read more: We have the evidence for what works in schools, but not everyone uses it

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The work of the Monash Q Project in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation suggests universities and researchers need to recognise that research impact is about “professional learning” as much as “knowledge transfer”, and so needs knowledge “pull” as much as knowledge “push”, and support for “quality use” as much as “quality evidence”.

And collaborating for impact is key.

These insights present new challenges, but also new opportunities for universities, such as Monash, that take seriously their responsibility to play “a role in understanding and providing ideas and solutions to shape and respond to the challenges […] of the age.” (Monash Impact 2030).

Find out more about the Q Project here.