Institutional case studies: impact of researcher development

If you are considering how to build evaluation into your activity or looking for possible sources of imapct data or effective ways to demonstrate impact, our examples of the impact of researcher development activity might be of interest. Each of the 120 examples were contributed by research organisations and other stakeholders in the professional development of researchers.

Examples are presented in an appendix to our report The impact of researcher training and development: two years on (2010), which is based on the work of the Vitae Impact and Evaluation Group.

The appendix, The impact of researcher training and development: two years on, A-Z of impact evidence, includes a summary table which can be used to identify examples of interest. Each example is mapped against our Impact Framework, to identify the level of impact that can be demonstrated.

Examples include...

Cardiff University presents evidence of on the impact of researcher development activity from various sources. On: carrying out [development] needs analysis from their 2008 Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES); their ‘Research Students’ Skills Development Programme, from attendance data; skills development opportunities from a survey of third year postgraduate researchers and supervisors.

Victoria University gives key findings from their evaluation of the impact of an internal funding scheme, set up in response to pressure from the New Zealand Government for universities to raise research outputs and the level of staff participation in research.  The evaluation looked at four key areas: contribution to scholarship; teaching informed by research; relationships to external funding; career progression of participants.

The Institute of Cancer Research describes its science communication course and identifies various examples of impact (mapped to the levels of the Impact Framework) from an evaluation of the course.