scholarly journals Understanding the funding characteristics of research impact: A proof-of-concept study linking REF 2014 impact case studies with Researchfish grant agreements

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 1291
Author(s):  
Gavin Reddick ◽  
Dmitry Malkov ◽  
Beverley Sherbon ◽  
Jonathan Grant

Background: All parts of the research community have an interest in understanding research impact whether that is around the pathways to impact, processes around impact, methods for measurement, describing impact and so on. This proof of concept study explored the relationship between research funding and research impact using the case studies submitted to the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise in 2014 as a proxy for impact. Methods: The paper describes an approach to link the REF impact case studies with the underpinning research grants present in the Researchfish dataset, primarily using the publications captured in both datasets. Where possible the methodology utilised unique identifiers such as Digital Object Identifiers and PubMed ID’s, and where this was not possible the funding information within each publication was used. Results: Through this automated approach 21% of the non-redacted case studies could be linked to a specific research grant. Additional qualitative analysis was then done for unlinked REF impact case studies, which involved reading the document to identify additional information to make the linkage. This approach was taken on 100 REF impact case studies selected at random and resulted in only seven having no identifiable research grants funding associated. The linked research grants were analysed to identify characteristics that are more frequently associated with these grants, than non-linked ones. Conclusions: This analysis did point to some interesting observations such as the grant funding linked to REF impact case studies are more likely to be longer, higher financial value, have more publications and be more collaborative (amongst other characteristics). These findings should be used with caution at present and not be over interpreted, this is due to the sample size for this proof of concept study and some potential limitations on the data which were not addressed at this stage.

Author(s):  
Suzanna Tomassi

This chapter investigates the relationship between industry and academia from the perspective of industry. In addition to the theoretical review, it is based on feedback from industry leaders on how they see the role of their organizations in wider society. This chapter utilizes case studies to examine the relationship between specific companies, their academic partners, and the wider society. It focuses on the UK experience reflecting the location of its author. It specifically looks at the links between Coventry University, a British public institution located in the West Midlands, and its selected partners: the Unipart Group, Horiba MIRA, Interserve, and KPIT in India. It also refers to a bespoke Global Leaders Programme which is an exclusive, extra-curricular offering, designed to enhance students’ leadership and soft skills and prepare them for future employment after graduation. Wherever possible, the author aimed to obtain feedback from the industry representatives to assess their views on the impact of their companies on the wider society. In the same spirit, relevant colleagues from Coventry University were asked for their feedback to ensure that both perspectives were fairly captured. The examples given, and indeed, the philosophy behind the projects could be transferred to other countries and applied to other industries.


This book offers a powerful and distinctive analysis of how the politics of the UK and the lived experience of its citizens have been reframed in the first decades of the 21st century. It does so by bringing together carefully articulated case studies with theoretically informed discussion of the relationship between austerity, Brexit and the rise of populist politics, as well as highlighting the emergence of a range of practices, institutions and politics that challenge the hegemony of austerity discourses. The book mobilises notions of agency to help understand the role of austerity (as politics and lived experience) as a fundamental cause of Brexit. Investigating the social, economic, political, and cultural constraints and opportunities arising from a person’s position in society allows us to explain the link between austerity politics and the vote for Brexit. In doing so, the book goes beyond traditional disciplinary approaches to develop more interdisciplinary engagements, based on broad understandings of cultural studies as well as drawing on insights from political science, sociology, economics, geography and law. It uses comparative material from the regions of England and from the devolved territories of the UK, and explores the profound differences of geography, generation, gender, ‘race’ and class.


2010 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Bell ◽  
Nicky Stanley ◽  
Sharon Mallon ◽  
Jill Manthorpe

A number of studies have investigated the relationship between suicide and perfectionism but none to our knowledge have been based on studies of completed suicides. This article aims to provide important insight into the potency that certain profiles of perfectionism can claim in the path to suicide by presenting three case studies from a U.K. study of student suicide. Collectively, these case studies provide theoretical support for existing frameworks and are consistent with other literature which emphasizes those forms of perfectionism that engender severe self-criticism and self-doubt and fear of failure as most destructive.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. e002027
Author(s):  
Brinnae Bent ◽  
Peter J Cho ◽  
April Wittmann ◽  
Connie Thacker ◽  
Srikanth Muppidi ◽  
...  

IntroductionDiabetes prevalence continues to grow and there remains a significant diagnostic gap in one-third of the US population that has pre-diabetes. Innovative, practical strategies to improve monitoring of glycemic health are desperately needed. In this proof-of-concept study, we explore the relationship between non-invasive wearables and glycemic metrics and demonstrate the feasibility of using non-invasive wearables to estimate glycemic metrics, including hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and glucose variability metrics.Research design and methodsWe recorded over 25 000 measurements from a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with simultaneous wrist-worn wearable (skin temperature, electrodermal activity, heart rate, and accelerometry sensors) data over 8–10 days in 16 participants with normal glycemic state and pre-diabetes (HbA1c 5.2–6.4). We used data from the wearable to develop machine learning models to predict HbA1c recorded on day 0 and glucose variability calculated from the CGM. We tested the accuracy of the HbA1c model on a retrospective, external validation cohort of 10 additional participants and compared results against CGM-based HbA1c estimation models.ResultsA total of 250 days of data from 26 participants were collected. Out of the 27 models of glucose variability metrics that we developed using non-invasive wearables, 11 of the models achieved high accuracy (<10% mean average per cent error, MAPE). Our HbA1c estimation model using non-invasive wearables data achieved MAPE of 5.1% on an external validation cohort. The ranking of wearable sensor’s importance in estimating HbA1c was skin temperature (33%), electrodermal activity (28%), accelerometry (25%), and heart rate (14%).ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the feasibility of using non-invasive wearables to estimate glucose variability metrics and HbA1c for glycemic monitoring and investigates the relationship between non-invasive wearables and the glycemic metrics of glucose variability and HbA1c. The methods used in this study can be used to inform future studies confirming the results of this proof-of-concept study.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-504
Author(s):  
James Muldoon ◽  
Danny Rye

This article contributes to scholarship on the relationship between political parties and social movements by proposing the concept of ‘party-driven movements’ to understand the formation of a new hybrid model within existing political parties in majoritarian systems. In our two case studies – Momentum’s relationship with the UK Labour Party and the Bernie Sanders-inspired ‘Our Revolution’ with the US Democratic Party – we highlight the conditions under which they emerge and their key characteristics. We analyse how party-driven movements express an ambivalence in terms of strategy (working inside and outside the party), political aims (aiming to transform the party and society) and organisation (in the desire to maintain autonomy while participating within party structures). Our analysis suggests that such party-driven movements provide a potential answer to political parties’ alienation from civil society and may thus be a more enduring feature of Anglo-American majoritarian party systems than the current literature suggests.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katy Jordan

The need to demonstrate the impact of research has become an important issue in the Higher Education sector in the UK. This has been taken care of through the introduction of ‘impact case studies’ as part of the research excellence framework (REF). The aim of the study presented in this paper was to understand the role that educational technology (and related terms) played in the 2014 REF impact case studies, using the public online database of case studies as a data source. Searches for 11 educational technology-related terms yielded a sample of 125 unique case studies. Although this represents only 1.9% of the total case studies, educational technology is clearly playing a role. The cases comprised two major subgroups: those where educational technology was the focus of the research (mainly associated with cases in education and computer science), and those where educational technology was used as a route to achieving impact (mainly in health-related subjects). The findings have implications for the contributions that educational technology and educational technologists can make in enhancing and supporting this important issue within their institutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-35
Author(s):  
Debbie Savage ◽  
Gareth Loudon ◽  
Ingrid Murphy

How to successfully create impact from academic research is the focus of much debate. Discussions often centres on the role of discipline, researcher skills and behaviour, or institutional systems to capture impact evidence, but little consideration is given to the relationship between research impact and the research environment. Focussing on the Impact Case Studies submitted to Unit of Assessment 34: Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory, this research used Content and Narrative Analysis to review a sample of the most and least successful Impact submissions as ranked by Times Higher Education. The aim was to identify the characteristics of high-scoring Impact Case Studies to inform strategies for supporting the generation of research impact, but what emerged was evidence of a nuanced relationship between research environment and research impact. For Research and Management Practitioners, these findings highlight a need to extend beyond the development of training, advice and databases and respond directly to the core purpose and ethos of research impact. This can be achieved through the cultivation of an open, flexible and dynamic research environment capable of responding to institutional and researcher needs in order to allow impact to flourish.


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