Millions of citizens have benefited from our educational programmes: there must be more to impact than the REF’s strict definitions

Popular television shows, such as Frozen Planet, have reached half of the UK’s adult population and made them curious to learn more. However, the programmes co-produced by the Open University won’t count towards an impact score. Tim Blackman illustrates the university’s work on impact for public benefit and calls for a wider definition of impact to include this.