Impact monoculture – are all impact case studies the same old story?

The impact of quantitative research measures on academic behaviours have been widely discussed, but the impact of qualitative assessment regimes is more often thought of as benign. Drawing on an analysis of impact case studies submitted to REF 2014, Justyna Bandola-Gill and Katherine E. Smith, explore how the narrative turn in research assessment has created four distinct narratives for impact case studies. Finding these narratives to diverge from more complex accounts of real-world impact, they assess the relative value of this ‘governance by narrative’.