Research Impact is a global endeavour | LinkedIn

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/research-impact-global-endeavour-tamika-heiden


 

Research Impact is a global endeavour

• 
  Published on Published onOctober 24, 2017
  

Tamika Heiden

Revolutionising Research Impact Ι Connecting Researchers & Society Ι Facilitating research collaborations

29 articles

For
a second year running, the completely online and free Research Impact
Summit has drawn a crowd and created vibrant conversations.


Initially, run as an experiment in 2016, The Research Impact Summit
delivered a research conference of a different style and definitely of a
different price tag. Having found that the most significant struggles
for researchers and higher education administrators are typically time
and money, I decided to eliminate these from the equation and help share
knowledge with as many researchers and research professionals around
the globe. To take it a step further I decided to interview the speakers
so that we could get some stories, nitty-gritty details of the "how
to", and the lessons they have learned along their journey of research
impact.


The goal of the Summit was not only to help as many people as
possible but to highlight the many elements that go into creating
opportunities for research impact. I was tired of the consistent talk of
measuring our impact without planning for, and creating opportunities
for impact, let alone capturing the impact evidence along the way.


In 2016, over 1200 individuals registered to watch the summit, and
over 1500 people tuned in during the free period (not all those that
watched registered). Some might say there was a first-time buzz about
the summit; however, the 2017 figures were similar, there were slightly
fewer registrations, but there were more people who watched online.

Research Impact is on the agenda everywhere.

Globally, the 2016 Summit reached 45 countries while this year the
Summit was attended by 56 countries. Some of the new countries reached
this year were Malaysia, Tunisia, Argentina, Austria and many other
smaller nations joining in. Also noted were increasing numbers from
Belgium, Sweeden, Italy, the African nations, Spain, Brazil, Finland and
Ireland.


Last year the city with the most content views was Queensland Australia, this year it was Southampton in the United Kingdom.

Interaction and networking

Unlike traditional conferences, the online conference format has
fewer opportunities for networking, that said, those that participated
on Twitter, in the Facebook Group and the website chat boxes were able
to share stories and resources. In 2016, a collaboration was born
through the Facebook group, this year I was able to link some
connections via email, and there have also been terrific stories from
the speakers about the interactions and increased opportunities for
collaboration that have been born out of the Summit.


To see some of the Twitter action check the 2016 and 2017 Storify sites. If you would like to get a feel for the Summit structure and content, watch this short snippet.


Special thanks must, of course, go to the 24 speakers from 2016 and
the 30 speakers from 2017, without which the Summit would not be
possible, these speakers generously donate their time. Sincere thanks to
all those that watched, Tweeted, sent appreciative emails and
participated, making this all worthwhile.

• Tamika Heiden is the Founder and Principal of Knowledge
  Translation Australia – a service that facilitates the movement of
  research knowledge into life. She works with researchers and research
  stakeholders to ensure their work is relevant, useful and useable so
  that it provides benefit and value to society.
• If you enjoyed this article or would like to learn some more about research impact, please head on over to www.ktaustralia.com or join our mailing list.

(20) Research Impact is a global endeavour | LinkedIn