We recently ran a workshop on preparing the ‘Pathways to Impact’ section of the JeS form. Here are some notes drafted by my colleague Jacqueline Aldridge on the most important points to come out of this.
- Don’t wait until the end of the application process to design your impact activity – it should be integral to the project.
- You need to be very specific and concrete – named contacts in named organisations make your plan look credible.
- Stick to appropriate and achievable aims for your impact statement.
- Vague or grandiose indications of possible impact are liable to be ignored. Try to avoid the ‘oh yeah?’ response.
- This attachment is now called ‘Pathways to Impact’ so you need to plot exactly how you will take your findings from academic to other communities and how far along this pathway you will get within the life of this project.
- Every impact plan talks about workshops, press releases, websites – bring yours to life with project-specific detail
- Consider what you will do if the project findings are not what you expect.
- Specify which project resources will be devoted to this project (costs for a seminar, a proportion of PI/postdoc time).
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