Our approach
We work collaboratively to articulate and amplify knowledge, insights and evidence from academic research – and engage those who can use, act on or benefit from them.
What do we aim to do?
Our purpose is to connect institutions, researchers and knowledge with those who can use research to drive or inspire societal change: policy and decision makers, industry and businesses, public and third sector organsisations, funders, the media and the wider public. We aim to increase funding opportunities by capturing, demonstrating and articulating the difference that academic research makes to society, and growing and raising the profile of strategically important research areas.
Who do we work with?
We collaborate across all levels of academic institutions and research organisations. We support senior leadership teams, research directors and senior managers, and impact, knowledge exchange and communications teams. We work at faculty, research centre, institute and programme level, and we partner with research teams who write our support into their funding proposals. We also work with professional societies and funding bodies.
How do we make a difference?
We pursue an interdisciplinary approach to research impact. Combining expertise in strategic consulting, funding development, knowledge mobilisation, creative communications and impact reporting, we provide targeted support across the research and impact cycle. Our work is rooted in our experience of the funding environment and a decade and a half supporting institutions and researchers to understand, increase and demonstrate the impact of their research.
Maximising research impact requires detailed planning and a joined-up approach, where researchers feel supported to pursue their goals. We explore how to develop supportive impact cultures, processes and mechanisms. We partner with researchers and research support professionals to define clear routes to impact for priority research areas, programmes and proposals. And we co-produce impact plans that embed effective engagement and evaluation in the research process.
Our specialisms
Impact strategy and planning
External engagement and knowledge mobilisation
Policy engagement and impact
Impact assessment and reporting
Research Excellence Framework (REF 2029): impact case studies and statements
Impact coaching and capacity building
Funding strategy and proposal development
Strategic research communications
Visual and journalistic storytelling
Our network
We collaborate with an evolving network of associates and specialists – consultants, facilitators, creatives, writers – so we can tap into a diverse range of skills and expertise depending on the aims of the institutions, organisations and researchers we work with.
Our principles
Ask the right questions
Fully understanding the research we work with, and how it might translate into action, calls for thoughtful questioning to tease out the messages that resonate with those we need to engage.
Think collaboratively
We listen to, connect with, and involve researchers, leaders and support teams before we recommend strategies or implement ideas. By uniting people, skills and knowledge, we ensure researchers are benefitting from a range of expertise.
Tell compelling stories
Whether to win funding, change thinking or inspire action, or to demonstrate the public benefits of research, we place the art and science of storytelling at the heart of what we do.
Engage with the detail
Clarity of thought and an ability to engage with complex detail underpin the way we work, giving academic researchers confidence in our approach.
Effect real change
Our contributions are always part of well-planned strategies that are outcome-focused, yet flexible enough to respond to opportunities to maximise their impact. We make things happen.
Act with empathy
Academic researchers are pulled in multiple directions: research, supervision, teaching, publications, funding proposals, management, impact. In understanding and working with these competing priorities, we can identify how to provide the most useful support.
