Writing impact case studies is an effective way to demonstrate the contribution of your research to society. This also helps to increase awareness, understanding, and knowledge of your research end-users outside academia. Here are some good practices:
Focus on the quality and significance of your research
- Concentrate on the key findings, breakthroughs, and the improvement you achieved as a result of your research instead of the research processes, publication venue, awards, and funding sources. Examples are:
- Attitude/behavioral/policy/cultural change.
- Benefits for economics, environment, social welfare, health and well-being, etc.
Clearly articulate the reach of your work and the differences you made
- Show how your research has reached the target audience at global level, or a narrow but hard-to-reach and important group if any. Point out who have been benefited from your research and what really makes a difference to them as a result of your works. This will be more convincing than listing the number of citations, reads, and downloads of your research output in the impact case studies.
Provide concrete evidence of impact
- Cite evidence of impacts rather than anticipated future impacts, and demonstrate clear links between your research and the claimed impacts. Examples are:
- Testimonials from stakeholders in relevant and credible organizations.
- Evidence to show the companies that commercialized your research findings.
- Citation of your work in policy documents.
- Change or implementation of government policy as a result of your work.
- Impact of the research contained in media reports.
- Any and other evidence of changes contributed from your findings.
Keep your language simple and direct
- Avoid long and complex sentences. Make sure the impact case study is easy to understand.
- Avoid jargon. Explain necessary terms and spell out acronyms when necessary.
- Use meaningful and consistent headings and sub-headings to help you organize your content.
Some Examples of Impact Case Studies:
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