Lining up the dominoes: lessons from art research on how to evidence impact

For research to have impact is becoming more and more important, so being able to convincingly evidence that impact is a valuable skill. Lesley Brook has studied how the impact of art research was evidenced during the 2014 Research Excellence Framework and shares lessons also applicable to a broader range of disciplines. While achieving impact is not a simple linear pathway, a complex domino fall can serve as useful analogy: starting with one domino, a cascade of research outputs and related activities fall along multiple branching pathways to contribute collectively to the overall impact of research and to evidence of that. Be sure to remove superfluous dominoes, fill in any gaps, and don’t end your lines too soon!