Department seminar series on knowledge exchange and impact

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Category: News

In Trinity term 2015, in a joint effort with the Social Sciences Division, the department organised a high-profile seminar series on Impact and Knowledge Exchange in an Evolving Research Environment.

The six events in the series, five seminars and a final panel discussion, held at Nuffield College and Saïd Business School, provided an opportunity for dialogue around new directions in KE and impact policy, governance, and practice, involving key stakeholder groups.

The five seminars, convened by Prof Alis Oancea (Deputy Director for Research, OUDE) and Prof Roger Goodman (Head of the Social Sciences Division), consisted of contributions from academics, funding bodies, and research managers, nationally and internationally, in the social sciences and beyond. The series covered discussion of metrics, as well as of narrative approaches to articulating impact; of the REF and institutional responses to it, as well as of individual academics’ engagement with impact, and the challenges, benefits and dilemmas arising from it; of practical, as well as conceptual and critical, aspects of research impact. The speakers included Prof James Wilsdon (University of Sussex – Chair of the HEFCE Metrics Review and of the Campaign for Social Science); David Walker (Head of Policy, Academy of Social Sciences); Dr Steven Hill (Head of the Research Policy, Higher Education Funding Council for England); Prof Eleonora Belfiore (University of Warwick); Prof Paul Wouters (Director, Centre for Science and Technology Studies, University of Leiden); and Dr Simon Kerridge (Director of Research Services, University of Kent). In the final event, five panelists reflected on research impact and knowledge exchange from different angles, from user perspectives and wide public debates, through institutional contexts and the interfaces with different funding bodies, and to international experiences. The panel, chaired by Prof Roger Goodman, included Sir Andrew Dilnot (Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford), Dr Claire Donovan (Brunel University London, currently Visiting Research Fellow at OUDE), Prof Colette Fagan is (Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester) Prof Alis Oancea (OUDE) and the University of Oxford’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Prof Ian Walmsley.

The seminar series was a great success, drawing audiences from around the UK, as well as some international attendees. All of the events were recorded and will be podcast. You can find out more about the series, as well as obtain a link to the podcast, by following: http://www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/research/impact-and-knowledge-exchange-seminars.