Selling impact: how is impact peer reviewed and what does this mean for the future of impact in universities?

Despite a wealth of guidance from HEFCE, impact evaluation in the run-up to REF2014 was a relatively new experience for universities. How it was undertaken remains largely opaque. Richard Watermeyer and Adam Hedgecoe share their findings from a small but intensive ethnographic study of impact peer-review undertaken in one institution. Observations palpably confirmed a sense of a voyage into the unknown. Due to the confusion and uncertainty, there was a tendency to prioritise hard (or more immediately certain) impacts over those deemed more soft (or nebulous).