Tell a powerful impact story at the Matter of Focus Research Impact School
Our 2023 Research Impact School is currently in progress. If you are interested in joining in the future, please register your interest via the form at the foot of this page and we will be in touch as soon as we have dates for you.
Quick links
What is the Matter of Focus Research Impact School?
Expert workshop series
Workshop dates
What will be covered in the workshops?
What you will gain from the Research Impact School
Download the brochure
Who will benefit from attending the Research Impact School
Impact tracking software – OutNav
How much does the course cost?
Register your interest
What is the Matter of Focus Research Impact School?
The Matter of Focus Research Impact School is led by Dr Sarah Morton, who has an international reputation as a leader in the fields of knowledge exchange and research impact.
The school consists of a series of live, online workshops held over five weeks, with a further three months’ access to our impact tracking software OutNav with ongoing help and support.
The school is for anyone that wants to develop a good understanding of research impact and plan for bringing a body of evidence together to tell a robust story or create a case study.
The Matter of Focus approach has been really helpful to talk about impact, even when it feels really nebulous.
Anonymous participant feedback
Expert workshop series
Sarah has designed the workshop series to give you the expert knowledge and tools you need to tell a more powerful impact story. One that can change minds, shift perceptions and possibly even inspire a policy rethink.
Across four 2-hour practical and stimulating workshops taking place remotely over Zoom, Sarah will share what she’s learned over a decade working in the field of research impact.
Workshop dates
Our 2023 Research Impact School is currently in progress (we’ve left the dates here for information, so you can see how the workshops are spaced).
If you are interested in joining us in future, please register your interest via the form at the foot of this page and we will be in touch as soon as we have dates for you.
Workshop One: 9 May
Workshop Two: 16 May
Workshop Three: 23 May
Co-working Session: 30 May
Workshop Four: 6 June
All Tuesdays 2-4 pm (BST)*
Time converter at worldtimebuddy.comJoining from a different timezone?
We have welcomed people to the Matter of Focus Research Impact School from across the world. Please let us know what timezone you are in when you register your interest below, and you can influence our scheduling!
I now have the ability to actually describe what I’ve been doing for the last eight years and why, in a comprehensive way.
Anonymous participant feedback
What will be covered in the workshops?
- How to plot an impact map
- Using impact maps to assess impact
- Assessing impact – potential indicators (what works)
- Identifying data (and gaps) to evidence your impact
- Designing data collection
- Building your impact story
- Sharing your impact story with different audiences, including REF and ARC impact case study requirements.
What you will gain from the Research Impact School
- A wider understanding of the challenges around tracking the impact of research on communities, policy, practice or the public.
- A measurable impact story with identified data and feedback.
- Strategies for getting feedback that insure your impact story is robust and credible.
- Practical advice to help you improve, build and refine your impact story for different audiences.
- Unlimited access to OutNav our innovative impact tracking tool for the duration of the course plus 3 months afterwards.
By the end of June you will have the structure and beginnings of your impact story. You will be prepared and ready start to demonstrating the impact of your work much more powerfully to your institution, your funders or wider stakeholders.
[The Matter of Focus] approach is really useful for telling the impact narrative. I’ve realised we’ve not been telling the right story of our impact. I’m an academic and I’m not sure I understand what we’ve been saying, so what hope does anyone else have!
Anonymous participant feedback
Download the brochure
An introduction to our approach to research impact assessment and our expert workshop series.
Download (pdf)Who will benefit from attending the Research Impact School
- Researchers or research leaders
- Impact officers
- Public engagement professionals
- Knowledge exchange leaders
Anyone that wants to develop a good understanding of research impact and plan for bringing a body of evidence together to tell a robust story or create a case study. Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss whether this training is right for you.
The content of this course should be essential learning for any researcher. It has changed the way I think about the research process, given me invaluable resources that I’ll draw upon in the future, and I’ve made some great connections.
Anonymous participant feedback
Hold everything together in our unique impact tracking software, OutNav
During the workshop series, you will work within our dedicated software OutNav, which holds our impact tracking approach together in one single secure place.
You will have unlimited access to continue working in OutNav for a further three months, after which you can fully download your work or choose to continue with a paid subscription.
Here’s Sarah to tell you a bit more about OutNav:
Your OutNav trial comes with further benefits
- Invite members of your team to join you in OutNav for free
- Ongoing support to use OutNav via our twice-weekly drop-in help sessions (Teams and Zoom options)
- A one-to-one support session.
Having OutNav to map all of it one place is really helpful because in our organisation different people do different parts of the work, and until now there hasn’t been any co-ordination.
Anonymous participant feedback
This is a very comprehensive approach. You can focus and work on certain small pieces, knowing that all the mass of things still to do is being held for you in OutNav.
Anonymous participant feedback
How much does a place at the Research Impact School cost?
One place at the Research Impact School costs £600 + VAT
This includes your 3 month subscription to OutNav.
REGISTER YOUR INTEREST FOR THIS COURSE
This doesn’t commit you to anything – we will simply let you know when we have dates scheduled.
FAQs
What are the payment options?
Payment is not required to reserve your place. We will be in touch to confirm how you would like to pay – invoice and credit card payment options are available. Payment must be received before the start of the workshop series unless otherwise agreed in advance.
What is the cancellation policy?
If you cancel your booking up to 10 working days before the course starts you will not be charged. If you need to cancel your booking after that date you will be charged but we will offer you a space when the course next runs. If you do not attend all sessions of the course, you will still be charged in full.
Can I make a group booking?
Yes! Please indicate how many places you would like to book in the reservation form below.
What happens if I miss a workshop?
Please make sure you can attend all four workshops before you book. As these are 2-hour workshops, if you miss one there will be a big gap and it will be difficult to catch up.
Do I need to prepare anything ahead of the workshop series?
During the course you will work a specific project where you would like to track impact. This might be a research dissemination, policy influencing, practice influencing, community engagement or co-production project, where evidence to action, knowledge mobilisation or public engagement with research is the focus. Please make sure you have thought about this in advance of attending the course! You will use this focus to learn about tools and techniques that you will be able to apply to other work.
What platforms will I be working on?
We will meet in Zoom, and you will work on Miro and in our own software OutNav.
