Crafting Research Impact Statements: Helping Faculty Demonstrate Their Value

Background: Library colleagues at a large academic institution have formed teams within the health sciences library and the central library to address research impact needs of faculty, students, and staff. Our team strives to educate the campus on using bibliometric indicators effectively within broader evaluation frameworks. Our primary mission is education and training, including individual consultations, and close partnership with our Offices of Research and a cross-campus Research Development Community of Practice. The team often presents tools containing bibliometric indicators that can be used for multiple assessment purposes, such as grant proposals, promotion and tenure, or awards.

Description: The team wanted to evolve our instruction from pointing to tools and providing definitions of bibliometric indicators, to giving our users practical applications. However, developing a relevant, pragmatic workshop on writing research impact statements was more challenging than anticipated. For example, we knew we wanted to demonstrate how bibliometrics might be used in grant review processes, but we could not find clear evidence of their impact. Nevertheless, we moved forward with how researchers could use bibliometric tools to enhance funding applications, with workable suggestions on reaching out to program officers. We also modified our idea from a very focused workshop on research impact statements for the National Institutes of Health to a workshop that could address many disciplines. Ultimately, we created an all-campus session where attendees could better understand how to use both subscription-based and free tools to write research impact statements. We provided an overview of research impact frameworks, such as the Translational Science Benefits Model, with the focus of the session being sample statements and best practices for integrating evidence. Evaluation involved a brief survey after the session, and we will also be hosting a lunchtime research development networking event sponsored by the research development community of practice.

Conclusion: The first round of our presentation resulted in increased interest on campus, and we plan to continue to refine the content and present again this spring based on user feedback and instructor reflections. Additionally, there have been requests for more tailored sessions, such as an upcoming career development office hour for early and mid career health services and policy researchers. We anticipate more requests for customized sessions, as our first session tried to accomodate all disciplines. Finally, we hope to learn more about how faculty and staff are using these tools for their research impact statement needs after attending our sessions, and how successful these research impact statements have been in achieving their goals.