Impact is a strong weapon for making an evidence-based case for enhanced research support but a state-of-the-art approach to measurement is needed

Research impact may be a new feature of the Research Excellence Framework, but the research evaluation community has been assessing impact since the 1990s. Claire Donovan believes it is time to stop reinventing the wheel and to ask what, after nearly two decades of development, is state-of-the-art in assessing research impact?