how to write a research impact statement

Writing an Impact Statement: Four Things You Need to Know

An impact statement is a short document that explains the significance of your research work. Researchers or students often use impact statements to answer questions related to the impact of their research on the current knowledge in that field or socioeconomic/environmental outcome. The impact statement is used to inform and convince different stakeholders. Who are these stakeholders? Stakeholders are often the people in charge of allocating funds—university administrators, grant program facilitators, or government policy makers. Therefore, it justifies why researchers need to further their current research or pursue a new area of interest.

Sections of an Impact Statement

Given that impact statements although necessary, do not directly advance research, writing one can be quite tedious. The grant funders or employers may ask you to submit it before the allocation of funds or beginning of a research project/program.

Impact statements follow a standard format . Typically, it consists of the following five elements, in this order:

• A clear description of the issue or problem that your research addresses. Often you can adapt the problem statement from your recently published articles or conference presentations.
• A statement of the action you are taking or intend to take to resolve the problem. This action statement should directly refer to the problem statement you wrote in (1).
• An explanation of the impact. This is the most important part of the impact statement. You need to describe clearly who benefits from your work and in what ways. You can focus on multiple different levels of benefit—individual, organizational, community, or social benefits, as well as benefits to the research community.
• A list of the people involved in the research, other than yourself. Any collaborators, including institutions you are working with to complete the research, need to be listed in this section. Stakeholders will be looking to understand what each member of the research team is contributing to the project.
• Your name and contact information, and (sometimes) a brief description of your background and involvement in the project.

Although some universities and funders might have other formats they prefer for the impact statement, this simple formula will work in the majority of cases. Check the requirements for your specific case before using the guidelines presented here.

Related: Done drafting an effective impact statement for your research proposal?  Check out this section today!

Top 4 Tips for Impact Statement

These tips will help you make your impact statements strong and impactful.

• Think about your audience when you write the impact statement. If you are writing an impact statement for people who are not researchers in your field, do not emphasize your work’s contribution to research in your field! Instead, focus on how the research will benefit broadly. Avoid overly specialized or technical language. Your readers may not be experts at what you do. Your impact statement needs to convince them that your work is important, even if they do not know all the arcane terminology you use on a daily basis.
• Use numbers to describe the impact of your work. For example, you can say how many people you have helped (for example, a number of participants in an extension program or clinical trial), how long your work has lasted or will last or how many people might be reached by a report you intend to write. Numbers help understand the importance of your work.
• Keep the impact statement short and meaningful. Your action statement should be very brief, just summarizing what you have done, so you can get the benefits of the work. People who read impact statements do not need to know every detail of your research.
• Proofread the impact statement, and have someone else proofread it, too to avoid unnoticed mistakes or typos.

If you have any other tips that have helped you write great impact statements, be sure to share them with us in the comments section below!

Thanks so much for your guidance. I am a beginner but motivated learn more in writing impact statement Regards, Pedro

Thank for a clear guidance to impact writing for beginners like me.

that’s really helpful thx!

direct and to the point, quick help for homework

Thank you now I understand what an environmental impact statement mean and how is writing.

Rate this article Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Enago Academy's Most Popular Articles

Sign-up to read more

Subscribe for free to get unrestricted access to all our resources on research writing and academic publishing including:

• 2000+ blog articles
• 50+ Webinars
• 10+ Expert podcasts
• 50+ Infographics
• 10+ Checklists
• Research Guides

We hate spam too. We promise to protect your privacy and never spam you.

I am looking for Editing/ Proofreading services for my manuscript Tentative date of next journal submission:

As a researcher, what do you consider most when choosing an image manipulation detector?

Writing Effective Impact Statements: Who Cares? So What?

Why impact statements.

Impact statements demonstrate how our work makes a difference in the lives of people, communities, and the environment.  Documenting the results of our efforts is also increasingly expected by funders and stakeholders. Those of us in the public sector identify and illustrate how our work makes a difference in our clientele’s economic, environmental, and social well-being through impact statements and impact reports.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture asks land-grant universities to collect and submit information on "impacts" of teaching, research, and Cooperative Extension programs.

At the federal level, impact statements are shared with members of Congress and other key decision makers. In Virginia, impact statements are used to highlight the value of our work to the Congressional delegation, members of the Virginia General Assembly, and other supporters and stakeholders.

Impact reporting is important because it:

• Helps us reflect on and improve our work.
• Demonstrates the difference we make in people’s lives, communities, and the environment.
• Improves visibility of programs (local, state, national).
• Generates support.
• Is a repository of results for speeches and other communication.
• Helps us focus on issues, initiatives, and program themes.
• Builds greater understanding of our programs by the public. Illustrates our accountability.

Impact reporting is important to land-grant faculty and staff because:

• Good impact reports can enhance performance appraisal as well as promotion and tenure/continued appointment.
• Stakeholders are asking for it.
• It lessens urgent requests for program examples, etc.
• Your work receives more visibility.
• Your work is exposed to potential funders.
• It can summarize and celebrate a job well done.

What is Impact?

Impact means the reportable and verifiable difference a land-grant program makes in the lives of people. Impacts are the documented results of a program, course, or research project.

Impact reporting:

• Illustrates the importance of the land-grant effort.
• Describes the positive change we make in social, economic, and environmental conditions in Virginia, the nation, and around the world.
• Provides public accountability.
• Increased income.
• Increased productivity.
• Value added.
• Expected values of outcomes.
• Alternative opportunity cost of capital.
• Willingness to pay.
• Multiplier effect.
• Increased quality of life (health, education, etc.).
• Non-market benefits (cost effectiveness, e.g.).
• Values of indirect outcomes.
• High rates of return on investment.
• Provides teaching/learning, research/discovery, and extension and outreach/engagement program accountability.
• Shows a return on investment.
• Fosters better public understanding of the whole picture of teaching/learning, research/discovery, and extension and outreach/engagement.
• Provides a reputation that improves future funding opportunities.
• Increases awareness of programs within the institution.
• Helps us reflect and learn from our work.

An impact statement is a brief summary, in lay terms, of the economic, environmental, and/or social impact of our efforts. It states accomplishments and their payoff to society by answering the questions:

Our impact audiences include:

• State officials,
• Federal officials,
• Local governing bodies,
• The general public,
• External funding sources,
• Industry representatives,
• Alumni, and

These audiences have:

• Some influence and control over our programs.
• Want information for decision-making.
• Have many people competing for their attention.
• Want quantifiable differences brought about by investments in our programs.

Writing an Impact Statement

An impact statement:.

• Briefly summarizes, in lay terms, the difference your teaching/learning, research/discovery, and extension and outreach/engagement efforts have made.
• States accomplishment and creates strong support for programs.
• Answers the questions... "So what?” and “Who cares?"
• Conveys accomplishments in simple language free of technical jargon.
• Is submitted by faculty for three to five efforts each year.

Audience for impact statements:

Your impact audience is the public: local, state, and federal officials, your peers, external grantors, and industry representatives. Keep in mind that both basic and applied studies have impacts.

Impact statements follow a simple formulaI:

• Why are we doing this teaching/learning, research/discovery, and extension and outreach/engagement program?
• What needs were expressed?
• What was the situation/problem, and why was it a problem?
• What college initiative and/or Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) planned program is addressed?
• What did you do?
• What were the key elements?
• Who was the target audience?
• What resources were expended?
• The impact of your works is in the answer to the question "What is the payoff socially, economically, and environmentally?"
• What knowledge was gained?
• What skills were increased?
• What practices/behavior changed? How many people changed?
• How much money was saved?
• Were policies changed as a result?  
• What were the end results (quantitative and qualitative)
• How was evidence collected to document the impacts (surveys, observation, etc.)?
• What was the scope of the impact (campus, regional, statewide, etc.)
• List collaborators or contributors.
• Your name and contact information.

The Research Whisperer

Just like the thesis whisperer – but with more money, the prickly impact statement.

Wade’s PhD research focused on how and why universities and academics engage with communities.

This is  Wade’s personal website  and he tweets from  @wadekelly .

Multiple times a year I provide impact statement workshops. Not everyone can make those, so rather than having that knowledge only live in the workshop space, I thought I’d highlight some of the main take-aways shared during that workshop here.

While I’m based in Australia and tailor a lot of my advice to Australian frameworks, this post has relevance for any researcher who is trying to write a research impact statement. If you’re not sure what is meant by research impact, my earlier post about the emerging impact landscape may be helpful.

Increasingly, impact statements are integrated into funding applications. The impact statement should be a standalone snapshot of your project. Impact statements may go by other names — for example, the Australian Research Council’s National Interest Test could be considered an impact statement — but they are essentially asking researchers to provide the same components.

Impact statements are a genre of writing and, once you have a handle on the components that make up a persuasive impact statement, they’re much less daunting to generate.

Types of impact statements

Retrospective — the impact, and how it was generated, from a previous project

Prospective — what you’re planning to do to generate impact for a proposed project

It’s important that you know what your funder is asking for. Some funders want to ensure that you have a firm plan in place to generate impact for a proposed project. Others want proof that you know how to generate impact because you have in the past.

Both retrospective and prospective impact statements have the same components; the tense is just different (e.g., “we did” vs. “we will”). To simplify things a little, we’ll stick with prospective impact for statements for the rest of the post.

Impact Statement Components

At the simplest level, there are five components that make a strong impact statement: problem, solution, beneficiaries, outputs, and impact .

The problem statement needs to be high-level, clear, and simply stated. This is the ‘why’ of the research, not just the ‘what’. Problem statements can be stated in the negative (e.g. “childhood obesity is an epidemic”) or as a positive (e.g. “our project will reduce childhood obesity”). In the latter, the reviewer fills in the gap and goes, “Ah yeah, this is a project about childhood obesity.” If you’re having difficulties getting started, ask yourself, “Why is my research needed?”. Pretend you’re explaining it to someone you meet around a campfire or at a barbeque.

This section tends to pose the greatest challenge to researchers when crafting a persuasive impact statement. My suspicion is that researchers know too much about their topic and have difficulty articulating succinctly what the problem is for a generalist audience. Remember, expert reviewers are experts in their subject, not always yours.

In this section, you talk about your proposed solution to the problem. This is where you discuss the research you want to do. Remember to align your proposed solution to the problem statement. There should be a cause and effect relationship here — because this thing is an issue, we’re going to do this . Some grants have multipage impact statements but usually it’s a fairly small space so keep it short, succinct, and high-level.

An issue I often see with this section is that researchers rehash what they have written in other sections of the application. Don’t copy and paste. Start fresh and try not to get too bogged down in the details. You might mention that you will use interviews, but you don’t need to delve into sampling criteria, which generally belongs elsewhere.

Beneficiaries

Reviewers want to know that you have a clear sense of who is going to be interested in using your research findings. The more concrete your beneficiaries can be, the better. If you can name project partners, name them. If you can say how they will be involved in the project, do.

Saying that your research will benefit the public won’t cut it. It’s just too vague. Indicating that your work, for example, “will benefit young males between the ages of 18-25 by working with x, y, and z organisations,” is much more persuasive.

Outputs could be anything; a website, educational resource, videos, pamphlets, workshops, etc. The outputs are how you will get from research results to impact. Impact doesn’t just magically happen so lead the reader on a journey of how you’ll work with beneficiaries and stakeholders to make it happen.

This is another area that researchers seem to struggle with or haven’t though through fully. I suspect it’s because outputs happen after research results so it’s sometimes difficult to conceptualise what forms the outputs may take. Be that as it may, reviewers want to know that you’ve thought through how you will mobilise results into practice.

Often, the stated impact is only a sentence or two. It’s what all your activities will ideally culminate in. It could be an impact on policy, culture, health/wellness, the environment, and/or the economy. If your research is adopted into practice, what will that look like? What will the impact be?

Again, compelling specificity is the key. Lines like, “the impact will be on policy by working with policymakers” are anaemic and won’t convince reviewers that you have a clear sense of how to generate impact. What policymakers are you going to work with? What policy are you looking to impact? There are many posts about impact and policy, including Analysts, advocates and applicators , From science to action , and The hard labour of connecting research to policy during COVID-19 .

Putting it Together

In my workshops, I ask people to explain the elements of their impact statements and have others paraphrase it back. Often, when people hear the ways people interpret what they said, they find gaps in logic and issues with clarity.

You can do this exercise yourself as well. Pick up your phone, go to the memo app, and press record. Talk through, to yourself, each of the above impact statement components. Then go for a walk and listen to yourself. Listen a few times and you’ll start to hear where there are jumps in logic, where you have used jargon, where a reviewer might raise their eyebrows.

Write each of the sections above separately — one paragraph each — then stitch it together.

For my workshop, I invite participants to colour-code the impact statement components for their research.

Here’s a marked up example of text from the engagement and impact submission of this study about reforming youth mental health interventions :

You want to ensure that there’s a reasonable balance between each of the sections.

If 90% of the statement is the problem, or the solution, or the outputs, it’s out of balance. You need to make sure that each component is adequately addressed.

—————————-

My top tips for creating a great impact statement:

• Don’t leave it until the end. The impact statement should be the first part of a grant you write, not the last.
• Know your audience. Who is reviewing your statement?
• Don’t oversell or undersell yourself. Reviewers are savvy.
• Watch for jargon ! Expert panellists are only experts in their area.
• Don’t undersell your engagement work in the community, industry, etc. Engagement can lead to impact .
• Name your stakeholders if possible.
• Record yourself outlining your project. Then write it out. This can give you a quick start on your impact statement.
• Engage someone who’s not in your discipline to review your statement.
• Don’t be too precious with it. It’s a high level statement that can’t address every nuance of your project.

Share this:

Have you seen this: If You are Serious About Impact, Create a Personal Impact Development Plan, Herman Aguinis & Kelly P. Gabriel in Business & Society, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503211014482

Like Liked by 1 person

Thanks for the comment and the link. I’ll take a look. Cheers!

Simply brilliant! I am not yet interested in the Grant stages of research, but will likely be there at some point within the next two to three years. I have bookmarked this article for such a time as that occurs. Blessings and honor, Christine

Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you enjoyed the read. Cheers.

[…] The basics of writing an impact statement, by Wade Kelly, provides a straightforward strategy for developing a statement for a grant application.  […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

So What? Writing an Impact Statement

• First Online: 26 April 2023

Cite this chapter

• Narelle Hunter 3  

856 Accesses

After completing this exercise, the learner will be able to convey the impact of their research clearly and concisely to a wider audience. Learners will be able to determine the appropriate language to use when communicating by considering the purpose of the communication event. They will also develop an understanding of what it means to communicate research outcomes with intent.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Australian Research Council. (2019, March 27). Research impact principles and framework . https://www.arc.gov.au/policies-strategies/strategy/research-impact-principles-framework

Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). A process genre approach to teaching writing. ELT Journal, 54 (2), 153–160. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/54.2.153

Article   Google Scholar  

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12 (1), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(02)00124-8

Nordin, S. M. (2017). The best of two approaches: Process/genre-based approach to teaching writing. The English Teacher , 11.

Google Scholar  

Website Link

Australian Research Council Impact Studies. ( https://dataportal.arc.gov.au/EI/Web/impact/ImpactStudies ). Accessed 27 Jan 2021 .

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Narelle Hunter

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Narelle Hunter .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Chemical and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Susan Rowland

School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Louise Kuchel

1 Electronic Supplementary Material

Appendix 46.1.

(PDF 106 kb)

Appendix 46.2

(PDF 127 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Hunter, N. (2023). So What? Writing an Impact Statement. In: Rowland, S., Kuchel, L. (eds) Teaching Science Students to Communicate: A Practical Guide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91628-2_45

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91628-2_45

Published : 26 April 2023

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-91627-5

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-91628-2

eBook Packages : Biomedical and Life Sciences Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Impact Statements

Impact statements are increasingly common in funding applications. These statements typically consist of five components:

• Beneficiaries
• Impact     

The problem  needs to be articulated clearly and succinctly, explaining why the research is important in simple language for non-experts. The proposed solution should be described in a cause-and-effect relationship and be concise, general, and fresh. Beneficiaries , including partners and stakeholders, should be specific. Outputs should be explained using a narrative approach to show how you’ll work with them to deliver impact. The proposed impact should be described briefly and include specific details.

To write a strong impact statement , it’s recommended to draft it first in the grant writing process:

• Understand your audience to focus on key information,
• Keep content high-level and meaningful,
• Ensure all statements can be supported by evidence,
• Use clear and simple language,
• Balance the sections adequately,
• Engage with stakeholders,
• Name all beneficiaries and stakeholders,
• Outline your project first, and
• Have a reviewer from outside your research field.

By following these tips, you can create a clear and compelling impact statement that highlights the significance of your research and its potential impact on society.

For more information see Kelly, W. (2021, June 1). The Prickly Impact Statement. The Research Whisperer . 

Apply     MyCAS

• Administrative Organizational Chart
• CAS Administrator Roles
• Strategic Advantage Ignite Sessions
• CAS Engagement Session with President Murthy
• Logos, Templates & Style Guides
• Orientation and Training
• Other Opportunities
• Agendas and Minutes
• Health and Safety Training Manual
• Tractor Safety
• Farm Safety Training
• Agricultural Operations Resources
• University Safety, Risk and Compliance Resources
• for Faculty & Advisors
• Define Goals
• Find Funding
• Prepare Proposals
• Submit Proposal
• Award Set Up
• Managing Projects
• Closing Out Projects
• Research Project Survey
• Research Toolbox
• Submit a Field Day
• Varietal Release & Royalties
• Hatch & Multistate Research
• for Researchers

Creating Powerful Impact Statements

Why are powerful impact statements needed.

Good science gets projects funded; powerful impacts get programs reauthorized.  Learn to write impact statements that are useful and memorable from these narrated PowerPoint presentations.

Creating Powerful Impact Statements  

This is an overview of the importance of creating powerful impact statements, with attention to drawing funder attention to your work.

Ties to Logic Model

Once you’ve written a program or project logic model, half the work of documenting the impact of your work is done. From the problem to the outcomes, this presentation shows those relationships as you create a concise and memorable impact statement. Learn about the distinctions among short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes. Interpretation of outcomes is impact.

Writing for the Average Voter

Does your writing style reduce the memorability of your impact statement? This file will help you understand the impact of vocabulary, units, and voice on reading comprehension level. If your program area focuses on youth, family or community systems, you may benefit from a brief introduction to social return on investment.

Tips for Creating Funder-Useful Impact Statements

Tips for Creating Funder Useful Impact Statements. A one page pdf pointing out some of the most common errors when faculty write impact statements.

Twitter in Ten Minutes

What is Twitter?  Why Tweet?  Learn how to drive your audience to learn more about your research using Twitter.

Powerful Impact Resources

• SOARS Impact Statement Template
• Output Outcome Definitions CRIS
• Glossary of Impact Terms - If you have a vocabulary problem: this pdf is for you.
• REEport template

Video:  Impact Blues

Need a lift?  Gain some insights about the difference between “impact” and “attribution”.  Professional evaluator Terry Smutlyo sings a song about impact during an outcome mapping workshop. (Video)

Video:  Aha! moments in program evaluation: Surveys

What are some key take-home messages in designing a survey? Here are some handy tips shared in a conversation between Molly Engle, Evaluation Specialist, and Linda Brewer, Senior Faculty Research Assistant of OSU Extension. This is the first in a series of video blogs from the OSU Extension Service on Program Evaluation.

Video:  Aha! Moments in program evaluation:  Needs Assessment What is the problem to solve? What is the gap between two conditions?  How will you address it?  What if you don't address the problem?    Molly Engle, Evaluation Specialist in OSU Extension and Sam Angima, Regional Administrator in OSU Extension, have an insightful conversation about the needs assessment process.

Excel for Evaluation

Excel is a great tool for data analysis--if you know how to use it.  The Excel for Evaluation videos to show beginner- and intermediate-level Excel users how to analyze  data. Each video is 1-4 minutes long and uses examples from real evaluation projects.

LOGIC MODEL RESOURCES

A)  wisconsin logic model.

The Wisconsin Logic Model is at the center of University of Wisconsin-Extension program development and is referred to widely.  You will find many resources located here, in particular, the graphic of the Program Action-Logic Model is helpful for visualizing inputs, outputs and outcomes.

B)   Key Considerations for Development of Logic Models

Logic models are a popular format to illustrate a program, or aspects of a program, to aid in program planning, implementation, or evaluation. This tool will help you visualize and prepare to build an effective logic model.

Reporting Examples for 5 Extension Work Areas

• Agriculture
• Family and Community

Literature Citations

These are pdf documents created for specific training presentations. No attempt has been made to keep them up to date.

• Understanding program development and evaluation
• Measuring and Reporting Web-Based Media Impacts
• Measuring and Reporting Environmental Impacts
• Measuring and Reporting Economic Impacts
• Measuring and Reporting Social Impacts

Useful websites for creating memorable impact statements

• Plainlanguage.gov -A website by the United States Federal government that gives some useful strategies and examples in using plain language.
• Grammar Girl -A website that provides some basic tips and tricks to clarify your writing. Not for cognitive access per se, but elements can be useful in UD.
• Creative Commons -Here you can find free pictures that you can use, often with attribution, to illustrate your work and writing.
• Wholonomy's Flexible Thinking and Action Planning Tool

Honing your presentation skills

Video:  made to stick: presentations that stick.

Make your presentations as memorable as an urban legend. Dan Heath, co-author of “Made to Stick,” gives you three minutes of advice on presenting ideas for maximum memorability.

35 Top Presentation Books

If you're interested in the most effective books regarding creating presentations, 21 of these focus on content and delivery, 14 focus on visuals.  You don't have to invent the wheel.

Guidance from NIFA for Outcome Writing

In response to the demand for general guidance from diverse audiences on how to improve their outcome writing, NIFA has prepared a presentation outlining such guidance. This presentation is intended to be generic enough that it can be shared amongst various colleagues and partners and span multiple disciplines. You will note that some screenshots are from the POW system, but they are generic in that they are not labeled as such and simply list indicators and outcome statements.

2021 Workshop

• Multistate Project Impact Handouts

• Visit the University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Apply to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Give to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Search Form

Impact statement guidelines.

An impact statement describes why your efforts and outcomes are relevant and important . It describes what difference they are making. It answers the questions:

• Why does this matter?
• How is it making a difference?
• Who or what is being affected?
• What part are you playing?

Your impact statement should include a description of:

• The issue or problem.
• Why it is important to address this issue or problem.
• The action you have taken, are taking, or intend to take to make a difference.
• The outcome or intended outcome.
• The difference being made, including who benefits and in what ways.
• Your role and why it is important to the outcome and impact.
• The collaborators and others who have contributed to the impact you are describing. 

12 Tips for Writing a Good Impact Statement

• Approach this as an opportunity for others to understand rather than for you to explain.
• Keep it short.
• Use short sentences (no more than 30 words) and paragraphs (3-5 sentences).
• Write to the audience. Assume your audience includes people outside your discipline (it does).
• Briefly describe jargon and acronyms or avoid them altogether.
• Limit the description of the method you are using to a few non-technical sentences.
• Make sure the difference is evident.
• Include the human story behind the science (Why is this making a difference for people?)
• Clearly describe how your contributions contribute to the difference being made.
• Use numbers to illustrate increases or decreases that make a difference.
• Use anecdotes sparingly to bring life to other evidence of impact.
• Proofread (you and someone else) for typos, grammar, readability, and understandability. 

Impact Framework

Using the following framework may help identify impacts of your work and accomplishments 1 . You do not need to identify the dimension of this framework in your impact statement.

• Research-related impacts . e.g., new research methods or approaches that are leading to new discoveries; changes in how research is conducted by others.
• Policy-related impacts . e.g., changes to governmental policy or industry standards; changes to professionals standards.  
• Practice-related impacts . e.g., teaching pedagogy was improved; Extension practices were modified to reach new audiences; industry practices were changed. 
• One Health-related impacts . e.g., disease tolerance was increased; plant, animal, or human health was improved; crop nutritional value was increased.
• Natural ecosystem-related impacts. e.g., improved use of natural resources; increased balance in land-use.
• Society related-impacts . e.g., improved community vitality;
• Economic-related impacts . e.g., increased profitability of farming or ranching; greater opportunities due to job growth. 

Other Resources for Writing Impact Statements

Those looking for additional guidance on writing impact statements may want to consider the Multistate Research Fund Impacts web site . This site includes a useful infographic and worksheets and examples .

While you will provide your impact statement in writing, a verbal example may help to illustrate impact statements. See how Emily Johnston punctuates the impact of her research in just three minutes. Note how she exemplifies each of the elements of impact statements identified above.

Impact Statement Examples 

Consumer and economic impact: leaf minor insect expertise.

Guatemalan snow peas were detained at US ports of entry because of infestation by an unknown leaf miner species. In its larval stage, a leaf miner lives in and eats the leaf tissue of plants which can result in reduced yield. Fear arose that this unknown species would be imported to the US and infest US-grown crops. Guatemalan small farmers lost almost $5.7 million in revenue due to this detention. Others in the supply chain also lost revenue. US consumers lost access to off-season high-quality, affordable snow peas.

In response to this crisis, I provided technical assistance to the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) team. IPM CRSP was dispatched to the Guatemalan highlands to complete a taxonomic survey of snow pea leaf miner insects. This survey found the Liriomyza Huidobrensis, a major leaf minor species found in snow peas and other export crops. This species is also already found in the United States.

As a result of the IPM CRSP team’s efforts, which included my contributions, Guatemalan snow pea imports were resumed. US consumers regained year-round access to high quality snow peas. The IPM CRSP effort had positive economic impacts on the entire product chain in both Guatemala and the US. The US market of Guatemalan snow peas is about $140 million, of which about $7 million (5%) goes to the producer.   

Community vitality impact: Rural mental health

Despite advances in the treatment of mental health problems, incidence rates are increasing. Rate increases are especially pronounced in rural communities where individuals and families are less likely to have access to affordable specialized care. Suicide rate is an indicator of the prevalence of mental health problems. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), suicide rates in rural areas of the US increased 46% between 2000 and 2020 whereas in urban areas the increase was 27.3%. In Nebraska, 85 of 93 counties are designated as mental health professional shortage areas. Twenty-three counties have no mental health care providers. Solutions to the crisis in rural communities include a) access to acceptable mental health care, b) awareness of the problem, c) the development of local preventative strategies.  The work of me and my collaborators address all three solutions.

To build local capacity, my collaborators [names] and I identified three rural Nebraska counties to partner with in research that would have local impact. Each had one or more medical providers and no more than one mental health provider practicing within the county. Through Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), problems affecting the local community were identified, research questions that community members cared about were formulated, relevant data was gathered, and actionable results were generated. As a result, community members leveraged local resources to develop programming that would raise awareness of mental health problems and structures to support favorable mental health outcomes. They each made arrangements with mental health care specialists outside the community to provide telemental health services through the local medical clinic, thereby increasing local access to care.

This project had demonstrable societal and health impacts. Pre-engagement surveys indicated that approximately 1 in 5 (19%) adults had basic awareness of mental health problems and as few as 1 in 8 (12%) felt comfortable talking with a professional about it. Post-engagement surveys indicated that basic awareness and comfort talking to a professional rose to almost 1 of 3 (31% and 29% respectively). Sadly, within 3 months after our engagement ended, one community experienced a suicide. As a result of their participation in the project, local community members were well positioned to respond. Those who had participated with us in CBPR came together to develop a community response that would raise awareness, address grief, and provide support. They implemented a response that made a difference within their community.

Implementation of Best Practices Impact: Soil Health Networks

Public Value. Productive, sustainable, and resilient agriculture is dependent on soil health. Agricultural land-use practices can either degrade or improve the condition of the soils in a way that has long-term consequences. Producers can manage soil health through practices that maximize water infiltration, reduce soil erosion, and improve nutrient cycling.

The Situation. Getting evidence-based information and practical strategies to producers is important to nurturing healthy soils. But, often this isn’t enough to change behavior. Opportunities for producers to talk with, learn from, and encourage and support each other increase the likelihood that soil health practices will be used. Traditional programming that relies on formal presentations to large groups, while efficient, does not lead to the discussion, sharing experiences, and networking that encourages adoption of practices.

Extension Response. I partnered with Alexis Myers from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to develop the Extension Soil Health Café Talks. The Café brings together people who are invested in improving soil health outcomes (e.g., producers, Extension faculty, scientists, industry representatives, consultants). It is a way to share scientific information and practical solutions in a small-group community-like setting that facilitates attendees networking with each other.

Impact. The Extension Soil Health Café Talks increased the reach of Extension faculty, consultants, and farmers by expanding their networks. The more the network expanded the greater the influence that person had on soil health practices. Over a three-year period (2021-2023), the team implementing the Cafés consisted of seven farmers, seven Extension faculty members, and four consultants. The Cafés led to 362 connections among 169 individuals. As the following network graphic illustrates, those with more direct and indirect connections had more influence on on-farm practices. The green (Extension faculty member), blue (farmer), and pink (consultant) circles represent Café team members. The size of the circle and the location within the network graphic indicates their influence on others in using evidence-based soil health practices. These connections facilitated by the Cafés expanded the network and influence of individuals on the use of research-based soil health practices in farmers’ fields.

Participant Feedback “This is a model extension program. I can’t think of a better way to engage with farmers.” – team member consultant. “I enjoyed talking with other growers and learning how they are managing their soils.” – Participant farmer

1  Modified from https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6963-6-134

• Jul 20, 2017
• 10 min read

How to write a winning impact summary and pathway to impact

Updated: Apr 16, 2020

Many researchers find the impact sections of their grant applications among the most challenging to complete. This guide explains exactly what you need to write in the two separate impact sections in a Research Council bid (your impact summary and your pathway to impact), and also applies to the impact sections of grant applications for other funders. Click on the podcast logo here for an extended audio version of this guide or scroll to the bottom for a summary video version.

A strong impact summary and pathway to impact can make the difference between getting funded or not if your application is tied with others in the “danger zone” near the funding cut-off. Being able to demonstrate impact is even more important if you are applying for funding for the Global Challenges Research Fund , where you have to demonstrate how your work will contribute to Overseas Development Assistance.

You can see best practice examples of impact summaries and pathways to impact here . If you have a good example, get in touch - the more examples we receive, the more useful this resource will be.

What should be in my impact summary?

The impact summary is meant to answer just two questions:

1. Who might benefit from this research?

2. How might they benefit from this research?

To answer these questions, all you need to do is to: i) Clearly articulate impact goals (not dissemination or knowledge exchange goals – that’s part of your pathway to impact); and ii) list (and group) your publics and/or stakeholders. The next two sections explain how...

How can I identify powerful impact goals?

Start by identifying clear impact goals, if possible making them as specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART) as possible. Struggling? Try these tips:

Visualise yourself at the end of your project having achieved an impact that everyone is talking about. Where are you and what can you see? What has changed? What are people saying about how they have benefited?

Make sure your impact goals aren’t simply about communicating your research findings

If they are, then ask yourself who is most likely to be interested in your work outside academia, and how those who hear about your work are likely to benefit from or use what they learn

If you don’t know the answer to these questions, just focus on trying to identify the aspects of your work that you think people outside academia are most likely to be interested in. Then ask yourself why you think they might be interested in this aspect of the work

If you’re still struggling, go out and speak to some of the people you think might be interested, and ask them what interests them most, what might make it more interesting/relevant to them, and how they would like to benefit from or use your work

If you have a goal that is all about communication rather than impact, then you might have a good idea of the sorts of modes of communication you want to use (e.g. social media, film), and an alternative is to work back from the communication method you’re interested in using, to the people who will engage with that method, and then their interests and how they will benefit. Beware that in some cases you may discover that the communication method you want to use will not actually reach people who are interested or can use your work (for this reason it is always best to start with the goal and/or your publics/stakeholders first, before choosing your pathways to impact)

Download the Fast Track Impact Planning template for a structured method of linking impact goals to publics/stakeholders, research findings and pathways to impact. If you find it hard starting with the goals, try and start by identifying your publics/stakeholders and what they might be interested in, and then work back from there to your goals

How do I know who might benefit from my work?

Now you’ve got some clear impact goals, you need to identify the publics and/or stakeholders that will benefit when these goals have been achieved. Here are some tips to make this easy:

If you have limited knowledge and experience of publics/stakeholders working in your area, team up with a colleague who knows more. If you have time and contacts, consider inviting someone from outside academia who works with the people you want to help, and get them to advise you on the key groups you need to reach out to

For stakeholders, consider the relative interest each group or organisation has in your work, and their relative influence over your ability to achieve your impact goals. This influence could be negative (blocking you from achieving impact) or positive (enabling you to achieve things that would not have been possible without their help)

For publics, in addition to considering their relative interest in your work, consider the extent to which different groups (e.g. demographics, interest groups) might benefit from your work

See the graphics below for examples of actions you can take with each of the categories of publics and stakeholders that emerge from this analysis

Reach out to as many of the groups that emerge as benefiting strongly or being highly influential before you submit your grant application to get their feedback and help with your pathway to impact. This will lead to a stronger, more credible pathway and will give these groups a greater sense of joint ownership, making them more likely to engage if you get funded

Download the Fast Track Impact stakeholder and publics analysis template to do a full analysis. You won’t have room to put all of this information in your impact summary or pathway, but you will be able to use this information to group publics and stakeholders into categories (e.g. third sector, business, policy, or different sectors, socio-economic classes or interests), make strategic choices about who to highlight as key collaborators and give you a level of detail that will make your impact summary and pathway highly believable

This infographic shows how you can identify, categorise and prioritise publics and stakeholders for engagement, prioritising publics who will benefit most, and identifying the most influential stakeholders who can help you achieve impacts:

What are the essential things every pathway to impact should include?

According to JeS Help the Research Councils are looking for four things:

1. Activities that actively engage relevant stakeholders/publics;

2. Activities that meet their needs, interests and priorities;

3. A clear plan (including "timing, personnel, skills, budget, deliverables and feasibility”; and

4. Your track record with stakeholder/public engagement and impact.

Fast Track Impact did an analysis of pathways to impact that led to 4* impact case studies , which identified a number of important points. The Research Councils have great advice of their own here , and at the bottom of the page are links to advice on writing pathways to impact by each of the Research Councils. Here, I have tried to condense this mountain of advice down to the 10 most important things you need to make sure you don't forget:

1. Be specific

The number one piece of advice is to be specific. Tell reviewers exactly who you will work with (not just government, or even a particular department, but the specific policy team and if you have it the name of your contact in that team). Specify your goals clearly, with specific indicators that will tell you when each goals has been met. Explain how you will complete each activity in credible detail and why this is the best way of achieving a specific impact e.g. instead of social media, identify the platform you will use, who you will target that is on that platform, and what impact goals you will be able to preferentially achieve via this medium.

2. Demonstrate demand or interest in your work

Find evidence of growing public interest in the issues you are studying, numbers of people attending public engagement events or watching programmes linked to your subject. Demonstrate that stakeholders want/need your work, and if possible co-develop your pathway to impact (and in some cases the whole project) in collaboration with them. Establish an advisory panel (there is actually peer-reviewed evidence that these lead to impact more than many other pathways) and name the people you have invited, indicating where they have confirmed involvement.

3. Check you have activities to reach each of your goals

Systematically check if you have activities that will take you to each of your impact goals, and that you have identified activities that match the needs and preferences of each public/stakeholder group you identified in your impact summary.

4. Make it two-way

Where possible, focus on two-way engagement with publics and stakeholders rather than one-way communication of findings, so you get feedback and can adapt your approach to be as relevant and useful as possible. There is research evidence that projects that co-design outputs in collaboration with the people who need them, achieve greater uptake of their outputs because they are more relevant and people have a sense of shared ownership. Even for communication outputs like policy briefs, getting feedback from your target audience during the writing process can significantly increase the likelihood that your communication hits is mark.

5. Link to your impact track record

Talk about your track record on achieving impact, ideally with the groups and issues linked to your proposal. It is difficult to “prove” that you will be able to do what you are suggesting you will do, and some of the best evidence you have is a track record of having delivered impacts for these groups in these areas in the past. If you haven’t got a track record yourself, consider bringing someone into your team who does and get them to work with you on your pathway to impact.

6. Build in impact evaluation

Have a plan for evaluating whether or not you are moving towards or away from impact, which will tell you when you have achieved your goals. The process of identifying indicators will help you identify clearer and more credible impact goals. Thinking in detail about how you will know if you achieved impact will often identify risks and challenges that you can prepare for, making your plan even more credible. You can build in any costs of monitoring and evaluating impact into your proposal.

Cost your pathway to impact and justify your request for these resources (if you are short of room in your Justification of Resources you can refer reviewers to your pathway to impact and vice versa). This shows how seriously you are taking impact, and adds credibility to your claim that these activities will actually happen. Some directed calls for proposals from the Research Councils in the past have suggested approximately 10% of the total budget should go to support Pathways to Impact. Researchers typically put in significantly less than this, fearing negative feedback from reviewers on their "value for money", but anything between 5% and 10% is reasonable.

8. Weave in impact to your research plan

If possible, weave your pathway to impact into your research plan, cross-referencing to it from your case for support at relevant points.

9. Keep it simple

Use plain English and make your pathway to impact stand alone (e.g. spelling out acronyms), as a lay member of a funding panel may only read the impact related parts of your proposal in any detail.

10. Seek specialist impact pre-review feedback

Don't rely on academic pre-reviewers to provide feedback on the impact sections of your proposal. Instead, seek feedback from someone in your University who specialises in impact, or if possible, get feedback on these sections from someone who works with the publics or stakeholders you want to benefit.

What if I am doing pure research that will not have any impact?

It is really difficult to come up with any sort of impact for some very pure, non-applied projects. In this case you cannot get away without producing an impact summary and pathway to impact if you want funding from the Research Councils. You don't have to use all the characters and pages you are given, but you do need to think about what the next steps might be, even if these happen many years after your research is done, that might possibly provide economic or societal benefit. You don't have to be right and no-one will hold you to this - just make some educated guesses. Do not, however, be tempted to include additional benefits for academics, students and the academy in this section, or you may risk your pathway to impact being deemed "unacceptable", requiring you to revise it before funding can be granted.

What are some of the most common mistakes people make in their pathway to impact and impact summary?

I've reviewed proposals for five out of the seven Research Councils and sat on funding panels for a number of Research Councils, EU and national governments. Here are a few of the most common mistakes I have seen:

No clear impact goals (or the goals are just about communicating the research to stakeholders or publics)

Benefits for researchers and the academy are included in the impact summary and/or pathway to impact, commonly including training and career benefits for early career researchers and students, and conference and workshops that will mainly be attended by researchers. Cut and paste them into your academic beneficiaries section and start again. If you genuinely want to include capacity building for your research team or students as part of your impact, explain how they will be able to use their skills and experience outside the academy to generate societal or economic benefits, and consider how you will these achieve these benefits at scale, and evidence that they actually happen

Social science data collection methods are replicated from the case for support in the pathway to impact, claiming that the knowledge or engagement gained from these methods will generate impact

Public engagement for the sake of it – you have a clear pathway to impact via policy or industry and the reality is that your work is so niche, very few members of the public would be interested, but you’re going to bore the socks off a bunch of unsuspecting passers-by because you felt you had to add public engagement into your pathway to impact

Vague plans lacking detail are rarely credible

The impact summary is copied and pasted into the pathway for impact or vice versa

Even worse, copying and pasting from someone else’s pathway to impact

Finally, many people remove any impact goals and associated activities that are uncertain or high risk, leaving only a small number of highly conservative outcomes and activities, which fail to inspire or excite reviewers or panel members. Your funder will not expect to see every goal achieved in the same way as your research objectives, so the risks of dreaming big are relatively low, and the higher you aim, the higher you are likely to reach. You should, however, only ever promise to do things that are credible and feasible, that you intend to actually pursue.

If you have spotted something I've missed or disagree with anything I've suggested, please comment below. In the meantime, check out these best practice examples of impact summaries and pathways to impact . If you have a good example, get in touch. I believe that by sharing good practice, we can spread innovation, drive up standards in grant writing and improve the likelihood that research delivers impact.

Get more advice on writing pathways to impact from your Research Council:

#pathwaytoimpact

Related Posts

10 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Accessible to Everyone

How much are REF2021 4* impact case studies and 4* outputs worth?

What is good practice engagement and impact?

How to prepare the impact sections for a proposal

02 December, 2019

Reading time: 18 minutes

Clare Downing

Clearly thought through impact statements about how your work will engage with stakeholders and maximise impact and societal benefits.

Updated December 2023

• 1. What is impact?

2. Links between impact and knowledge exchange

• 3. Who will benefit from your work?

4. How will you engage your stakeholders?

5. monitoring, reporting and evaluation.

• 6. Top tips

Our guidance provides some ideas and suggestions for writing the impact sections that may be required as part of a research proposal. This includes how to find stakeholders and engage with them.

Our guidance provides some ideas and suggestions for planning impact that may be needed as part of a research proposal. This includes how to find stakeholders and engage with them.

A clearly thought through and acceptable statements about how your work will engage with stakeholders and maximise impact and societal benefits is an essential component of a research proposal and a condition of funding. However, there is no single activity or approach that will ensure that your project achieves impact.

This guidance was originally developed when a Pathways to Impact statement was required in many research proposals, but this has now changed with impact more integrated into the various sections of the call. In many cases the impact requirements are in the ‘How to apply’ section.

Specifically, within the ‘Vision’ section:

• Explain how your proposed work impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment and
• We expect you to identify the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be.

Within the ‘Approach’ section:

• Explain how you have designed your work so that it will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts

And within the ‘Applicant and team capability to deliver’ section:

• Evidence of how the team demonstrate experience and/or skills that ensures that the work contributes to broader users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit.

In order to address these requirements each proposal needs its own tailor-made set of activities so it cannot just be a cut and paste process. Here we give you a few pointers, some questions to work through and a suggested approach so that by the end you will have ideas about what impact your research could have, and what activities you could carry out to achieve the impact you are looking for.

1. What is impact?

Impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to scientific advances, society and the economy. This occurs in many ways – through creating and sharing new knowledge and innovation; inventing ground breaking new products, companies and jobs; developing new and improving existing public services and policy; enhancing quality of life and health; and many more.

Types of research impact

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) aims to achieve research impact across all its activities. This can involve academic impact, economic and societal impact, or both:

• Academic impact  is the measured contribution that excellent research makes to scientific advances, across and within disciplines, including significant advances in understanding, method, theory and application. This goes beyond an academic paper in your selected journal as it is across disciplines and other disciplines may not read your selected journal.
• Economic and societal impact  is the measured contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy, of benefit to individuals, organisations and nations.

The impact of research can include:

• instrumental impact – influencing the development of policy, practice or services, shaping legislation and changing behaviour
• conceptual impact – contributing to the understanding of policy issues and reframing debates
• capacity building through technical and personal skill development.

Why does impact matter?

• Many research grants (UKRI, Horizon Europe, Innovate UK) are spending public money which means that we need to demonstrate the benefits of that investment to society = accountability
• Research can be improved by engaging with a broad range of potential beneficiaries =  quality
• Shortening the time to benefits by pro-actively engaging beyond your own discipline, and increasing the impact we know our investments have =  maximising benefits
• It enhances UK attractiveness for research and innovation investment =  reputation .

You do not need to predict exactly the impact of your research, it is more about providing suggestions about what impact you might realistically have. Impact is about who the beneficiaries of the research might be and how you are going to work with them to shorten the time between discovery and use of the knowledge.

We would encourage you to think about impact at the beginning of the proposal preparation stage.

The critical questions to ask yourself about your project are:

• Who might use the outputs of your research?
• How can you make the impact happen?

A high quality approach to enabling impact should include clear awareness of the principles and practices of knowledge exchange i.e. a two-way sharing of knowledge, as opposed to dissemination of knowledge only. This includes the application of these principles and practices in co-productive research.

This may include:

• consulting users when planning and strategising for impact
• designing training workshops and events for specific user groups
• planning space to take advantage of unexpected opportunities
• committing to principal and senior investigator time on knowledge exchange and impact activities.

ESRC states that ‘The strongest proposals we receive show a mindset in which research, knowledge exchange and impact are linked together.”

Guidance on these links are available fromCREDS describe the way research, promotion, engagement, knowledge exchange and impact fit together as an interative journey with a series of four guides on:

• The research to impact journey: an overview
• How to promote research
• How to undertake knowledge exchange
• How to monitor and record impact

ESRC also has a guide on How to do effective knowledge exchange .

3. Who will benefit from your work?

Make a list of all those types of organisations who might use the outputs – this is also called ‘stakeholder mapping’. We suggest taking up to a day in total to tackle the following steps – draw up an initial list, discuss it with colleagues, do some further market research to prioritise and finally decide on the chosen short-list. The more specific you can be, the easier it is to develop targeted outputs for your chosen audience. The key is market segmentation – groups of people that have needs in common: sub-dividing your list into smaller groups will help.

You might like to separate them into:

• Those that would be interested in the methodology, for example, researchers in other disciplines,
• Those that would be interested in the results directly, for example, trade bodies or policy non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or consultants that collate information and use it for evidence reviews
• Those that might be interested in the results if they were tailor-made for them (selected sections only and potentially taken onto the next stage by providing recommendations/benefits/implications that link to their motivation)

For example:

• Government – national, devolved, regional or local
• Businesses – specific industry sub-sectors, innovative businesses, (e.g. high-use sectors), commercial, retail
• Intermediaries – those who will pass on information to others e.g. media, trade press, trade associations, professional bodies.

Think about:

• Why would this group of people be interested in this research?
• What motivates them?

Their motivation could be:

• The need for knowledge
• More detailed information
• Making the case for new investment
• Maintaining their reputation
• Ensuring corporate social responsibility
• Making a profit
• Job creation
• Improving safety
• Enhancing resilience
• Reducing risk

If you don’t know who your audience is, you need to find out. There are many ways to find out including:

• Market research (desk based)
• Ask your colleagues about their audiences and contacts
• Apply for some ‘pump-priming’ or business development funding to attend industry or policy-specific conferences to learn about the audience and their motivation

You will need to state how you might accelerate the route to making it happen – what specific activities are you proposing to ensure that the audience groups you have chosen will get the opportunity to benefit from your research?

Our suggested approach is:

Identify 5–6 people – key stakeholders, ideally more than half of them should be outside academia – who you might like to work with closely from the inception of idea stage (developing the proposal). They could potentially provide letters of support and/or work with you to refine the idea. Create a plan of the impact activities you will undertake during the project.

During the project, the key stakeholders might be involved from start to finish, doing anything from co-creating the research to advising on its applications in the real-world.

Once the project is underway, you could also look to engage a wider group of stakeholders who might use the research. This might involve 3–4 meetings, one at the start, one in the middle and one at the end of the research, so that you and your stakeholders go on the journey together. We would suggest you have at least four interactions with your selected audience during the life of the project to fully understand their needs, and work together on two-way exchanges to embed new ideas into both parties.

Once you have started to generate results, you might consider working with your key stakeholders to think about what types of outputs would best meet their needs and the needs of the wider group. Each output/activity should be tailored to meet the needs of your audience. We would strongly encourage you to undertake two-way engagement throughout the project, where both you and your stakeholders benefit from the interaction, rather than simply outreach or dissemination at the end of the project, when you will have no opportunity to see what any impact would be.

Any activities would be in addition to any personal academic outputs or outputs for UKRI, e.g. annual reports. All of these additional activities can be costed as part of your proposal (see Estimates for costing below).

Choosing your activities

In marketing theory and practice, there are many ways of choosing your activities. We focus on the concept we use at CREDS to illustrate our way of thinking, and as a method of choosing and structuring the activities.

We developed the engagement funnel, based on an adapted version of the AIDA concept, as a helpful way of framing the communication and impact activities. AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. The image below (Figure 1) shows how users can be moved from ‘not being aware’ of the information about your project to ‘action’ – taking up the information and using it – but this is not an instant, single step process. This is one of many marketing assessment tools (Jobber D. 1995) that describes the stages people go through in a decision-making process and that you can use to frame your impact activities. It involves multiple interactions in an ongoing series of activities over time, to move people through the funnel towards impact via action. This is why we suggest 3–4 meetings for stakeholders during the project.

The messages used at each stage of AIDA are not the features or work packages of the project: the messages describe the benefits (e.g. new models, revised policy advice, tailored recommendations and behaviour change), and value (e.g. transforming the energy system and society) that audiences and stakeholders will get from using the information that is generated from your project.

The main message for each stage needs to be different: it should take into consideration how the message is ‘sent’ and how it is ‘received’, and where the audience is located in the AIDA framework.

You also need to engage your audience by being where your audience is – both online and physically. You need to understand: what platforms they use, what social media tools they use, what events do they attend? You need to go to wherever they are, with your main messages in engaging formats. The list on the right-hand side of the diagram gives some ideas about the different types of marketing communications tools (marcomms) and channels (online, face-to-face) that can be used at each stage – you can use combinations of these marcomms to generate your activity plan.

Our view is that the knowledge generated from research is a ‘service’. It involves multiple interactions over time to move people between each of the stages of AIDA:

• Unaware to aware
• Aware to interest
• Interest to desire and
• Desire to action.

The users start at the top with broad main messages which appeal to a wide audience and are designed to ‘raise awareness’. The messages become progressively more tailored to the individual as they move through the stages, until the final interaction that tends to be a one-to-one encounter that convinces the user to take up the information and ‘action’ it in their work or home. This may be:

• A policymaker who references your briefing in their white paper
• The NGO looking to change behaviour who uses your report in their guidance note
• A request from a different discipline for you to sit on their project advisory board.

They will all be the outcome of multiple interactions with that stakeholder.

Figure 1: AIDA stages

The marketing communications tools listed in Figure 1 can be displayed graphically in terms of effectiveness against the stages of AIDA (Figure 2). The graph shows that many of the marcomms tools overlap multiple stages of AIDA, demonstrating that many tools can be used at many stages, but that some tools are more effective at certain stages. You can use this graph to help plan which tools to use at which stage to create the plan, and move your stakeholders through the stages of the funnel. Each tool is defined in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Graph showing where marketing and communications tools overlap multiple stages of AIDA, demonstrating that many tools can be used at many stages, but that some tools are more effective at certain stages.

Social media mentions and searches:

Google/X/Twitter/LinkedIn. A way of reaching many people in new audience types. Generates INBOUND traffic to the website to find out more, a way of increasing the audience numbers (Wikipedia/referring sites).

E-newsletter:

Creating awareness of new information (research results) or events. This covers printed media – newspapers, journals, magazines; traditional media – television and radio; and digital media – online blogs, email, website links.

Face-to-face conversations:

This used to be ‘one-to-one and small group meetings’ but is now mainly online via emails, mobile phone apps, Twitter, Facebook – anything where the information can be personalised to fit an individual’s needs or objectives. This also covers stakeholder-specific meetings that engage in dialogue, with the purpose of moving them through the funnel towards action.

Project website and individual emails:

For use at all stages with content targeted accordingly, from general to specific. Increasing numbers of people use a mobile phone or tablet to access content, so any web presence must be responsive, i.e. designed for viewing in multiple formats.

Case studies and testimonials:

Examples that show your potential new stakeholders and partners that these activities really work and it’s worth joining in.

You need to consider how you will monitor and record your outputs, outcomes and impact so that you can justify any changes with evidence that demonstrates ‘cause and effect’.

For example, if you run a meeting, this would be considered an ‘output’, and writing a meeting or event report that includes ‘next steps’ provides the evidence you will need in order to monitor what happens next.

An ‘outcome’ is an action that emerges from the meeting, such as being asked to provide evidence to a committee a few months later. Further down the line you might achieve an impact – as a result of the meeting, your work is referenced in the report/policy white paper that is published 6 months later. Total time – 1 year. The point is that the meeting is not the impact, it is typically only after multiple interactions and some time has elapsed that impact is generated.

You may also wish to evaluate if your activities have achieved what you wanted to them to achieve. To do this it is a good idea to ask the questions:

• What worked well?
• What could be improved?

You could ask these questions internally, to your research team and externally, to your chosen short-list of stakeholders. It’s a good idea to start the monitoring and set up these evaluation processes at the beginning of the project. One suggested approach is to ask these questions quarterly to your internal team and record them. A method of approaching the external M&E is to ask the questions above in your event feedback forms, assess the answers and put the results in an event report. Six months later, schedule a short phone call that asks each respondent / or a small selection if they have used any of the information: this then begins to record ‘outcomes or uptake’. At a minimum, you should record all your outputs in a way that can be reported on Researchfish. This list of ‘outputs’ is provided in the list below.

6. Top tips

• Ask colleagues and friends about who might be interested in the results of your research.
• Attend meetings that your stakeholders might attend – industry and trade body workshops, policy-related forums and join online groups e.g. LinkedIn.
• Describe and demonstrate a clear understanding of the context and needs of users, and consider ways for the proposed research to meet their needs, or a better understanding of these needs.
• Outline the plan and management of the impact-focused activities including; scheduling (see below), personnel, skills, costs (see below), deliverables, and feasibility. Include evidence of any existing engagement with relevant end-users.
• Draft the impact sections very early in your preparation, so that it informs the design of your research.
• Leave some scope and spare time to prepare for unplanned impact during the project, so that you can benefit from unforeseen opportunities.
• Include principal and senior investigator time to work on knowledge exchange and impact activities.
• Describe the monitoring, reporting and evaluation of impact that will be carried out in the project.

There are 20 impact case studies on the CREDS website. They are mostly in the early stages, in that the majority have only generated outcomes so far. However, with further promotion they are likely to generate impact in the future.

Scheduling for activities

When planning and preparing stakeholder and impact activities, take into account:

For events:

• For example, book the date and venue 3 to 4 months in advance, prepare a draft agenda and send out invitations for events 8 to 10 weeks in advance, confirm catering numbers and dietary requirements 1 week in advance, send out reminders to attendees 1 week and again 2 days before the event.
• Discuss with PI and agree time commitment for developing the agenda, invitee list, venue, scope of meeting, facilitation and training needs of staff running the meeting, time to write an event report to capture what happened, next steps and learning
• See the Planning effective, inclusive and sustainable events guidance that includes a planning checklist.

For marketing materials:

• For example, developing a policy brief takes approximately one-week elapsed time, but more if stakeholders need to approve the text. If distributing electronically – 1 day in advance, if printing, 5 days in advance of date needed.

Estimates for costings

• 20 people meeting with tea and coffee : room hire £700 per day, drinks £5pp, other expenses e.g. flipcharts, wifi etc. (700+100+£100 = £900)
• 50 people meeting with 3 breakout rooms and lunch : room hire per day £1500, breakout rooms £400 each, lunch £20pp, drinks (1500+120000+1000+ 250 = estimate £3950).

Sub-contracting external staff

Sub-contracting enables you to bring in skills sets that may not be available within your institution.

• Consultants – junior £400 per day, senior £800 per day (7.5 hours/day)
• Journalists, technical writers, editors, photographers, designers – £300–£600 per day (7.5 hours/day)
• Producing a policy brief– 4 hrs for you to draft it, 2 hrs for editor to tailor it to the audience by adjusting the language and tone, 2 hrs for designer to layout, 4 hrs for revisions (all staff), find a place to host it e.g. website, printing costs for 200 copies = £250. Cost for 3 days of time if all internal staff, cost as above for external staff. You may need to go through a competitive invitation to tender process with 3 contractors if the total is above a certain cost threshold.

Sources of further advice on impact:

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – impact toolkit .

Outputs list for Researchfish

• Publications: Record any publications, for example, journal articles, conference proceedings, reports, policy briefs, book, guide, other
• Collaborations and partnerships
• Further funding: Any additional funding & details of funding body and process, for example, research grant, fellowship, co-funding, capital, travel)
• Engagement activities: Details of activities that have engaged audiences, for example, working group, expert panel, talk, magazine, event, open day, media interaction, blog, social media, broadcast)
• Influence on policy: Details of activities that have influenced policy audiences, for example, letter to Parliament, training of policymakers, citation in guidance/policy docs, evidence to government including consultations.
• Influence on business: Details of activities that have influenced business, for example, citation in working procedures, revisions to guidance docs, citation in industry report, article in trade press, talk at trade event
• Research tools and methods
• Research databases and models: Only list the ‘new’ elements of any models, processes, data, for example, data analysis technique, handling, algorithm)
• Intellectual property and licensing: For example, copyright, patent application, trademark, open source
• Artistic and creative products: For example, image, artwork, creative writing, music score, animation, exhibition, performance
• Software and technical products: Any non-IP products that are public or do not require protection, for example, software, web application, improved technology
• Awards and recognition: For example, research prize, honorary membership, editor of journal, national honour.)
• Use of facilities and resources: For example, databases from outside of CREDS, shared facilities
• Other: Anything not already covered above.

Banner photo credit: Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

How To Write a Significance Statement for Your Research

A significance statement is an essential part of a research paper. It explains the importance and relevance of the study to the academic community and the world at large. To write a compelling significance statement, identify the research problem, explain why it is significant, provide evidence of its importance, and highlight its potential impact on future research, policy, or practice. A well-crafted significance statement should effectively communicate the value of the research to readers and help them understand why it matters.

Updated on May 4, 2023

A significance statement is a clearly stated, non-technical paragraph that explains why your research matters. It’s central in making the public aware of and gaining support for your research.

Write it in jargon-free language that a reader from any field can understand. Well-crafted, easily readable significance statements can improve your chances for citation and impact and make it easier for readers outside your field to find and understand your work.

Read on for more details on what a significance statement is, how it can enhance the impact of your research, and, of course, how to write one.

What is a significance statement in research?

A significance statement answers the question: How will your research advance scientific knowledge and impact society at large (as well as specific populations)? 

You might also see it called a “Significance of the study” statement. Some professional organizations in the STEM sciences and social sciences now recommended that journals in their disciplines make such statements a standard feature of each published article. Funding agencies also consider “significance” a key criterion for their awards.

Read some examples of significance statements from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) here .

Depending upon the specific journal or funding agency’s requirements, your statement may be around 100 words and answer these questions:

1. What’s the purpose of this research?

2. What are its key findings?

3. Why do they matter?

4. Who benefits from the research results?

Readers will want to know: “What is interesting or important about this research?” Keep asking yourself that question.

Where to place the significance statement in your manuscript

Most journals ask you to place the significance statement before or after the abstract, so check with each journal’s guide. 

This article is focused on the formal significance statement, even though you’ll naturally highlight your project’s significance elsewhere in your manuscript. (In the introduction, you’ll set out your research aims, and in the conclusion, you’ll explain the potential applications of your research and recommend areas for future research. You’re building an overall case for the value of your work.)

Developing the significance statement

The main steps in planning and developing your statement are to assess the gaps to which your study contributes, and then define your work’s implications and impact.

Identify what gaps your study fills and what it contributes

Your literature review was a big part of how you planned your study. To develop your research aims and objectives, you identified gaps or unanswered questions in the preceding research and designed your study to address them.

Go back to that lit review and look at those gaps again. Review your research proposal to refresh your memory. Ask:

• How have my research findings advanced knowledge or provided notable new insights?
• How has my research helped to prove (or disprove) a hypothesis or answer a research question?
• Why are those results important?

Consider your study’s potential impact at two levels: 

• What contribution does my research make to my field?
• How does it specifically contribute to knowledge; that is, who will benefit the most from it?

Define the implications and potential impact

As you make notes, keep the reasons in mind for why you are writing this statement. Whom will it impact, and why?

The first audience for your significance statement will be journal reviewers when you submit your article for publishing. Many journals require one for manuscript submissions. Study the author’s guide of your desired journal to see its criteria ( here’s an example ). Peer reviewers who can clearly understand the value of your research will be more likely to recommend publication. 

Second, when you apply for funding, your significance statement will help justify why your research deserves a grant from a funding agency . The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, wants to see that a project will “exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved.” Clear, simple language is always valuable because not all reviewers will be specialists in your field.

Third, this concise statement about your study’s importance can affect how potential readers engage with your work. Science journalists and interested readers can promote and spread your work, enhancing your reputation and influence. Help them understand your work.

You’re now ready to express the importance of your research clearly and concisely. Time to start writing.

How to write a significance statement: Key elements 

When drafting your statement, focus on both the content and writing style.

• In terms of content, emphasize the importance, timeliness, and relevance of your research results. 
• Write the statement in plain, clear language rather than scientific or technical jargon. Your audience will include not just your fellow scientists but also non-specialists like journalists, funding reviewers, and members of the public. 

Follow the process we outline below to build a solid, well-crafted, and informative statement. 

Get started

Some suggested opening lines to help you get started might be:

• The implications of this study are… 
• Building upon previous contributions, our study moves the field forward because…
• Our study furthers previous understanding about…

Alternatively, you may start with a statement about the phenomenon you’re studying, leading to the problem statement.

Include these components

Next, draft some sentences that include the following elements. A good example, which we’ll use here, is a significance statement by Rogers et al. (2022) published in the Journal of Climate .

1. Briefly situate your research study in its larger context . Start by introducing the topic, leading to a problem statement. Here’s an example:

‘Heatwaves pose a major threat to human health, ecosystems, and human systems.”

2. State the research problem.

“Simultaneous heatwaves affecting multiple regions can exacerbate such threats. For example, multiple food-producing regions simultaneously undergoing heat-related crop damage could drive global food shortages.”

3. Tell what your study does to address it.

“We assess recent changes in the occurrence of simultaneous large heatwaves.”

4. Provide brief but powerful evidence to support the claims your statement is making , Use quantifiable terms rather than vague ones (e.g., instead of “This phenomenon is happening now more than ever,” see below how Rogers et al. (2022) explained it). This evidence intensifies and illustrates the problem more vividly:

“Such simultaneous heatwaves are 7 times more likely now than 40 years ago. They are also hotter and affect a larger area. Their increasing occurrence is mainly driven by warming baseline temperatures due to global heating, but changes in weather patterns contribute to disproportionate increases over parts of Europe, the eastern United States, and Asia.

5. Relate your study’s impact to the broader context , starting with its general significance to society—then, when possible, move to the particular as you name specific applications of your research findings. (Our example lacks this second level of application.) 

“Better understanding the drivers of weather pattern changes is therefore important for understanding future concurrent heatwave characteristics and their impacts.”

Refine your English

Don’t understate or overstate your findings – just make clear what your study contributes. When you have all the elements in place, review your draft to simplify and polish your language. Even better, get an expert AJE edit . Be sure to use “plain” language rather than academic jargon.

• Avoid acronyms, scientific jargon, and technical terms 
• Use active verbs in your sentence structure rather than passive voice (e.g., instead of “It was found that...”, use “We found...”)
• Make sentence structures short, easy to understand – readable
• Try to address only one idea in each sentence and keep sentences within 25 words (15 words is even better)
• Eliminate nonessential words and phrases (“fluff” and wordiness)

Enhance your significance statement’s impact

Always take time to review your draft multiple times. Make sure that you:

• Keep your language focused
• Provide evidence to support your claims
• Relate the significance to the broader research context in your field

After revising your significance statement, request feedback from a reading mentor about how to make it even clearer. If you’re not a native English speaker, seek help from a native-English-speaking colleague or use an editing service like AJE to make sure your work is at a native level.

Understanding the significance of your study

Your readers may have much less interest than you do in the specific details of your research methods and measures. Many readers will scan your article to learn how your findings might apply to them and their own research. 

Different types of significance

Your findings may have different types of significance, relevant to different populations or fields of study for different reasons. You can emphasize your work’s statistical, clinical, or practical significance. Editors or reviewers in the social sciences might also evaluate your work’s social or political significance.

Statistical significance means that the results are unlikely to have occurred randomly. Instead, it implies a true cause-and-effect relationship.

Clinical significance means that your findings are applicable for treating patients and improving quality of life.

Practical significance is when your research outcomes are meaningful to society at large, in the “real world.” Practical significance is usually measured by the study’s  effect size . Similarly, evaluators may attribute social or political significance to research that addresses “real and immediate” social problems.

The AJE Team

See our "Privacy Policy"

• May 19, 2021
• Fundraising Strategy

How to Write a Compelling Impact Statement

Impact statements are critical parts of a nonprofits’ story and mission. If you’ve never heard of the term before, impact statements are generally short passages that let your donors know what your organization does, how you do it, and why you do it. Sounds like a lot to cover in about two sentences? Don’t worry, impact statements don’t need to be super complex to work! In fact, the shorter and simpler your statement the better!

On RoundUp App we give space for all nonprofits to include their impact statement. It’s one of the most important parts about a nonprofit’s RoundUp App brand profile! Why? If a potential donor is unsure of whether or not they will support your nonprofit through RoundUp App, the impact statement can be the deciding factor!

We’ve actually crunched the numbers and nonprofits that use impact statements on their profile perform better than those without them! Want to know how to write a compelling impact statement? We’ll show you in just a few steps:

• Make them short, simple, and to the point
• Be specific
• Avoid Jargon or specialized language

Making your impact statement short, simple, and to the point

On RoundUp App, all of our impact statements start the same: “Donating the spare change from your credit or debit card purchases allows us to…” Nonprofits fill in the blanks with a 70-character statement that completes the sentence.

We enforce the 70 character limit because we know that the shorter and simpler a statement is, the better results it has!

Making those 70 characters count

Keeping an impact statement down to 70 characters forces you to be mindful about what you are writing. Often when we’re writing for work there are phrases we use again and again without even thinking about it. When was the last time you really thought about how you phrase your case for support?

Be intentional about each word you choose for your impact statement.

Be Specific

Find a balance between keeping your impact statement simple and being specific about the projects or initiatives that donors, like those on RoundUp App, will have on your nonprofit.

While it can be tempting to write about everything your nonprofit is working on, you don’t want to overwhelm potential donors by trying to squeeze too much into your case for support. But don’t swing too far in the other direction by making too general of a statement. Your nonprofit is unique and you want potential donors to know what sets you apart from similar organizations.

Avoid Jargon or Specialized Language

Another writing trap we all fall into, but can be especially relevant for nonprofits, is using jargon that might be unfamiliar to the average person. Internally there are words we’re accustomed to using to describe what we do, but without context, certain keywords or phrases might cause confusion.

The most successful and persuasive statements often use “plain language” writing . The easier your mission is to understand, the better time your audiences will have connecting with your mission and feeling inspired to support it.

Examples of effective and compelling impact statements

Want to see how other nonprofits using RoundUp App create their impact statements? We’ve got some examples from you. Below are examples from some of the top nonprofits on RoundUp App right now and their in-app impact statements!

Your donation allows us to procure and distribute food and essentials to the hungry. Houston Food Bank

Your donation allows us to put the power of kindness to work. Be Kind Project

Your donation allows us to provide legal services/advocate for those most vulnerable in society. Urban Justice Center

Your donation allows us to inspire respect for nature through an appreciation of birds. National Aviary

Your donation allows us to ensure that all women and families are thriving. YWCA Metropolitan Chicago

Your donation allows us to continue to support people who are blind with lifelong skills. Leader Dogs for the Blind

Putting it all Together

With all of those lessons in mind, here’s a sample impact statement for a food bank, before using our three tips:

Donating the spare change from your credit or debit card purchases allows us to combat food insecurity by providing nourishing meals to those in need.

While that sample impact statement falls within the 70 character limit, it’s quite wordy and not everyone may be familiar with phrases like “food insecurity.” Instead, a food bank might say something like this instead:

Donating the spare change from your credit or debit card purchases allows us to feed the hungry with dependable, nutritious meals.

Use these tips in all of your writing to help create a clear case for support that donors will understand and that will inspire them to take action.

To learn more about RoundUp App and register your nonprofit, visit our nonprofit page.

Share this article with a friend

Recent posts.

What is Grassroots Fundraising?

Cryptocurrency donations for nonprofits

Donor Acquisition: what it is and why it’s important to your nonprofit.

Easily raise funds and engage donors with roundup app.

Join RoundUp App to easily raise funds and engage donors through monthly, one-time, and RoundUp donations.

2022 Flourish Change Inc.

[email protected] 5717   Legacy  Dr, #250 Plano, TX 75024

Privacy & Terms

Life’s big moments can impact an entrepreneur’s success – but not always in the way you’d expect

Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University

Adjunct Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Singapore Management University

Disclosure statement

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Edith Cowan University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of any innovative economy.

New business creation has been shown to have a significant and positive impact on economic growth, innovation and job creation. But it isn’t easy, and most new businesses fail .

When someone starts a business, they usually aren’t doing it alone – their whole family forms part of the journey . All of them can experience the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship.

This obviously flows in the other direction as well – founders’ personal lives have their own big ups and downs.

Big positive changes in a family – including job promotions, weddings and new babies – and negative changes – such as when someone sadly passes away – can really shake things up for someone trying to start a business.

Yet only minimal research has looked into the extent of these effects on new venture creation.

In a recently published study , we looked at how big family events affect the success of new ventures.

Surprisingly, our findings reveal that by making entrepreneurs overconfident, certain kinds of positive family events can have a bigger detrimental effect on new venture survival than negative ones.

Emotions have complicated effects

We used data from the Australian Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey to analyse the emotions caused by major family events that entrepreneurs experience.

Our study found that many of these family events had the influence you’d expect based on both intuition and past research – positive events typically helped and negative events typically harmed new venture survival.

But existing research may oversimplify this connection. The structure of a family – their relationships, emotions and goals – can affect an entrepreneur’s mental state and decision-making in complicated ways.

The effect on founders’ confidence levels is particularly important. Confidence is necessary to start a business, but can become a problem in excess when entrepreneurs overestimate their own abilities.

Notably, some positive events can lead to overconfidence, which could take the form of being overly optimistic about the extent of one’s abilities , or overestimating the accuracy of one’s own beliefs.

And perhaps counter-intuitively, we found that overconfidence resulting from positive family events had a negative impact on new venture survival. This impact was bigger than the impact of explicitly negative events.

Why might this be happening?

Two key theories from psychology may help explain why overconfidence ends up being harmful.

First “ affect-as-information theory ” suggests that our emotions serve as a kind of compass, guiding us to understand whether a situation is beneficial or harmful.

When entrepreneurs feel good due to a positive family event, like marriage to a childhood sweetheart, they may lean on their existing knowledge and heuristics.

Second, entrepreneurs may succumb to “ affect priming ”, which suggests that emotions influence decision-making by automatically bringing up related ideas and memories.

Such priming may not just influence what they think, but also how they think. For example, if entrepreneurs are in a good mood, their mind will offer up memories linked to positive emotion – whether relevant or not – to help them make decisions.

These theories suggest that major family events can influence an entrepreneur’s confidence by subtly and automatically adjusting how they evaluate opportunities and risks in decision-making.

Read more: Emotional intelligence is the key to more successful entrepreneurs

On the one hand, positive family events may lead to a more holistic thinking style and rapid decision-making. This can be beneficial for entrepreneurs who need to make quick and efficient decisions under time and resource constraints .

However, if entrepreneurs are too confident, believing that their abilities alone can make up for any lack of information, positive family events may just reinforce this overconfidence .

Like other people, when entrepreneurs think they’re better at things than they actually are, they may begin to believe tasks are easier than they really are.

This can lead to errors in judgement that seriously harm new ventures.

How does the research help entrepreneurs?

Our study highlights the embeddedness of family in the entrepreneurial process.

Entrepreneurs need to be aware of the need to carefully manage their own emotional state, particularly their confidence levels.

Entrepreneurship training and support programs often focus solely on business strategies to make new ventures succeed. This research suggests it is also important to incorporate elements like maintaining emotional health, managing major family events and accessing support.

Read more: Entrepreneurs are facing a mental health crisis — here's how to help them

• Entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurship
• Family life
• New research
• entrepreneurship programs
• New research, Australia New Zealand

Head, School of Psychology

Lecturer In Arabic Studies - Teaching Specialist

Senior Research Fellow - Women's Health Services

Lecturer / Senior Lecturer - Marketing

Assistant Editor - 1 year cadetship