How can influencing policy create real impact? - Policy Week 2024

How can my work generate impact? – Researchers often answer that question by aspiring to change policy, but is that really impactful in the true meaning of impact, as evaluated by the Research Excellence Framework? Real Impact is often defined as “when the knowledge generated by research benefits society, culture, the environment and the economy”.

Therefore, changing policy is not, in itself, impact - it is a link in a chain that flows from research towards change, it is a mechanism that could generate real positive benefits to some beneficiaries in society. In a business school context, this tends to be framed as benefits to individual, or groups of, firms and organisations.

Economic and business policy makers are also interested in understanding how policy affects the real world. They want to understand the effects of current policy and how changing tack could affect the business environment and firms within it.

Academic researchers and policy makers can work together to achieve both aims, by firstly establishing who the [primary] beneficiaries are and who else is impacted by the current status quo.

Researchers can then help policy makers understand and evaluate how their current policies affect businesses, either as a distinct piece of research or as part of their wider studies into the relevant policy area.

Researchers can use their knowledge obtained during a research project, which must, as a prerequisite of good quality research, demonstrate rigour in how the evaluation was undertaken. This insight can then provide policy makers with validated ideas to what to change in a policy, or to develop a programme to target some core beneficiaries of concern.

As part of demonstrating impact, researchers must trace and evidence how the research led to policy changes, and how in turn, these policy changes then result in benefits in the real world. This requirement can then fuel the next cycle of policy formation.

Leeds Business School (LBS) have collaborated with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) in this way to help them develop the Business productivity service. Researchers from LBS helped WYCA evaluate their previous productivity programme - and then consolidated this with insight generated from our own research in this area of productivity improvement in SMEs, to provide diagnostic tools and the approach that underpins the programme.

LBS are now working closely with the delivery partner for the programme - Exemplas - to evaluate the impact of the programme on the SMEs, and to directly inform the next generation of policy in this important area.