Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how research impact within the REF became institutionalised and legitimised by pro-impact communities. Thus, it will explore how the top-down and bottom-up movements for impact have transformed each other and the new professions and forms of expertise that consequently emerged.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the rise of the so-called impact agenda in the UK as a project in cultural transition. The research impact agenda is often (and rightly so) discussed as a top-down political project driven by the changes to the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). However, the rapid and large-scale implementation and institutionalisation of ‘impact’ across the sector would not be possible without an already existing movement advocating for impact-adjacent practices such as evidence-based policymaking, co-production or public engagement. This paper explores how REF's top-down incentivisation of these practices has shaped these movements by enabling them (by legitimising their existence and creating a ‘market’ for impact advice) and limiting their activities (by narrowing down the scope of ‘acceptable impact’). Thus, this presentation will explore how the top-down and bottom-up movements for impact have transformed each other and the new professions and forms of expertise that consequently emerged. It will do so by drawing on two datasets of interviews with people working at the ‘forefront’ of the impact agenda, including translational researchers, knowledge brokers, impact trainers and advisers. The interviews were collected at different stages of institutionalisation of research impact, in 2015-2016 and 2023-2014. Such longitudinal analysis allows tracking the evolving perspectives on impact within this community and the interplay between the informal and formal agents of science policy.