Research Impact Challenge: Home

Research Impact Challenge

In recent years, the demand for scholars and institutions worldwide to demonstrate their research impact has become an increasingly important part of funding applications, promotion dossiers, and ranking analytics. The focus on research impact brought an increase in impact assessment activities and intense discussions on the impact assessment ethics.

A major issue with research impact is defining what “impact” is. So far there is a general consensus that impact is “the demonstrable contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment and culture beyond the contribution to academic research” (UK Research and Innovation).  However, the variety of disciplinary characteristics and research projects’ goals makes difficult to establish a clear framework for assessing impact. 

To compensate for the exponential increase of information available and to maximize the impact potential of their research, scholars are encouraged to take steps towards increasing visibility and discoverability of their work within academic communities and beyond by taking advantage of the changes in scholarly communications determined by the development of the Internet, social media, and information technology. 

Register for the Challenge to receive a daily email with a recommended activity that will help increase visibility and discoverability of your work and enhance your online scholarly presence.  Each activity stands alone and can be completed separately from the others and at a time that is convenient for you. The 5-days Research Impact Challenge tasks represent some of the most effective ways to curate your online presence and make your scholarship more discoverable.

If you have questions about the guide or about additional resources, please contact us.

This challenge was inspired by the "30-day impact challenge: the ultimate guide to raising the profile of your research" by Stacy Konkiel and multiple similar challenges at other academic libraries.