Building an impact-literate university

How can universities embed societal impact into research practice without reducing it to metrics or placing the full burden on researchers?

Esther de Smet, Senior Research Policy Advisor at Ghent University’s Central Research Department, explores how shared language, responsible assessment, tailored support, and stronger institutional connectivity can build impact literacy.

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Summary

Universities increasingly expect research to create societal value, yet researchers are often left to interpret that expectation through reporting requirements, communication outputs, or isolated measures of reach. Esther Desmet, Senior Research Policy Advisor at Ghent University’s Central Research Department, argues that impact literacy offers a broader and more useful foundation. It gives researchers, professional staff, and leaders the ability to understand how research connects with society, which changes matter, who must be involved, and why an institution is pursuing impact in the first place.

This perspective shifts attention from proving impact after the event to creating the conditions in which it can develop. Ghent University has embedded that thinking across research policy, assessment, information infrastructure, training, and brokerage. Its experience shows that an impact-literate university depends on shared language and responsibility, support adapted to different disciplines and contexts, and institutional commitment strong enough to connect work that would otherwise remain fragmented.

Impact literacy begins with purpose and shared responsibility

Esther defines impact literacy as the capacity and skills required to understand how research connects with society in an ethical way. A useful starting point is to challenge the assumption that research automatically matters to people or that intended users are already applying it. Researchers need to examine the connection, while institutions must recognise that responsibility extends well beyond the individual academic.

Impact literacy is a shared responsibility.

Esther breaks the concept into four questions: what, how, who, and why. The ‘what’ concerns the changes or demonstrable benefits that research might support. The ‘how’ covers the processes that move knowledge towards use, including valorisation and mobilisation. The ‘who’ acknowledges the researchers, brokers, partners, and users whose participation makes impact possible. The ‘why’ establishes the institutional or societal purpose behind the effort.

Together, these questions position impact literacy alongside research integrity, ethics, and open science as part of good research practice. They also broaden its relevance beyond research alone to higher education and knowledge creation more generally. Every level of the university must understand its place in the pathway, from leadership and support structures to research groups and individual academics.

Universities should distinguish the pathway from the result

A persistent misunderstanding arises when visible activity is treated as impact itself. A television appearance, podcast, public event, or policy citation may contribute to knowledge mobilisation, but it does not by itself demonstrate that research has produced change. Esther distinguishes societal value creation and the pathway towards impact from the eventual benefits that may emerge.

This distinction matters because researchers do not control every step. Other people must encounter, interpret, adapt, and use knowledge before it can contribute to change. Training should therefore help researchers plan pathways, build relationships, recognise useful opportunities, and manage the uncertainty involved, without placing responsibility for every eventual outcome on their shoulders.

Ghent University’s position in Flanders has shaped this approach. In the absence of a national assessment framework or major funding criterion for societal impact, the institution faces less pressure to conform to a technical reporting model. That freedom also brings limited urgency, accountability, and resources, particularly when compared with economic impact. Esther has responded by connecting impact work with more established areas, including responsible research assessment, ethics, and open science, while developing smaller initiatives that can strengthen capability.

The university adjusted existing evaluation frameworks and incentives, recognised a limited number of interdisciplinary research centres focused on societal impact, and assigned each an impact strategist or knowledge broker. It also created a societal value creation fund and began integrating impact more fully into GIZMO, its research information system. These measures concentrate support on the pathway that an institution can influence.

Responsible assessment rewards the work that enables impact

Metrics can be informative, but Esther stresses that they remain indicators rather than complete explanations. Media mentions, events, policy references, and website traffic may reveal attention or reach. Understanding whether meaningful change occurred requires a richer account of relationships, context, contribution, timing, and possible unintended effects.

There’s nothing wrong with metrics or with indicators, but that’s all they are. They indicate something.

Ghent University can therefore focus conversations with researchers and research groups on what they put in place to make benefits possible. This reduces the pressure to claim results beyond their control and creates space to recognise high-quality engagement, collaboration, and learning. Narrative CVs and guidance for evaluators and those being evaluated support the same move towards qualitative and contextual assessment.

For its interdisciplinary research centres, the university has drawn on the SCOPE framework. Its principles include evaluating only when necessary, involving the people being evaluated, and using evaluation expertise. The process starts by identifying what the institution values, then considers context, selects appropriate options, probes the ethics and meaning of the evidence, and evaluates the evaluation itself.

That final scrutiny prevents convenient measures from becoming misleading proxies. A media appearance could show recognition or public attention, but it cannot establish that an audience changed its thinking. Responsible assessment asks what the evidence genuinely demonstrates and whether collecting it serves accountability, resource allocation, or organisational learning.

Support must fit the researcher, discipline, and context

An institutional framework needs enough clarity to create a shared understanding without imposing one pathway on every researcher. Ghent University rejects a simple division in which technology transfer belongs to STEM, while policy advice and science communication belong to the social sciences and humanities. Societal value creation is relevant across disciplines, although its expression will vary.

The university’s toolkit reflects this flexibility. It provides common definitions and principles, then draws on a range of external resources rather than prescribing a single institutional theory of change. Researchers and research groups can select methods that suit their talents, topics, approaches, and stakeholders. Authenticity matters because partners can recognise engagement designed primarily to satisfy an impact requirement.

Everything else is down to the researcher, the research group. What suits your talent? What suits your research method, approach, topic, and your stakeholders?

Local support helps researchers navigate those choices. Ghent University has nine impact brokers and an additional liaison officer connecting the social sciences and humanities with technology transfer. It provides access to Altmetric to show how research travels online and through policy documents, while also helping researchers identify potential stakeholders and partners.

Training uses a multiplier model. Esther works with people who lead research teams and colleagues responsible for funding and researcher development, recognising that no central advisor can hold all the disciplinary and pathway knowledge required. Established platforms, including the university museum, a city living lab, an entrepreneurship hub, and science communication activities, also allow researchers to engage without creating every mechanism from the beginning.

Connectivity turns separate initiatives into institutional capability

Esther describes a healthy impact culture through six connected elements: clarity, commitment, competencies, connectivity, co-creation, and context. Context is the essential addition because institutional practices cannot simply be copied from one national, organisational, or disciplinary setting to another. Ghent University’s decentralised impact strategists and knowledge brokers bring expertise close to researchers and stakeholders, making support more responsive to the work itself.

Connectivity remains the most difficult element. Research policy, professional support, communication, technology transfer, assessment, and leadership may each hold part of the impact puzzle, while operating with different language and performance indicators. If these groups work in organisational silos, researchers encounter an inconsistent system and may not receive the right support at the right moment.

Do not tackle impact from organisational silos.

Leadership commitment gives these pieces a shared direction. Public statements about impact gain credibility when they are reflected in incentives, resources, evaluation, and collaboration across the institution. Without that alignment, impact risks becoming window dressing or the responsibility of a very small team. With it, researchers can draw on complementary expertise and focus on their own contribution to a longer pathway.

The relay-marathon metaphor captures this collective model: knowledge moves from user to user, with different people advancing it at different stages. For Esther Desmet, an impact-literate university accepts that interdependence, helps people learn from one another, and gives researchers permission to share the weight of impact with the wider institutional community.

Ready for more?

Creating societal impact requires more than measuring outcomes. It depends on helping researchers, professional staff, and partners understand how knowledge moves beyond academia, who needs to be involved, and what conditions allow research to create meaningful change.

• What is research valorisation? A practical guide explores how universities and researchers can translate knowledge into societal, economic, cultural, and environmental value. It provides an accessible introduction to the principles of research valorisation and the different pathways through which research can create impact.
• More than commercialisation: Understanding university engagement examines the diverse ways universities contribute to society through knowledge transfer, valorisation, partnerships, and engagement. It broadens the conversation beyond commercial outcomes and highlights the many routes through which universities create value.

Together, these insights reinforce a key message from Esther de Smet’s experience at Ghent University: Impact is not a single outcome to be measured, but a shared and collective process that connects research, people, institutions, and society.

Stay tuned for the next episode on this series and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred podcast platform!