Research project
ESRC IAA 2023-2028
- Start date: 1 April 2023
- End date: 31 March 2028
- Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
- Value: £1,250,000
- Primary investigator: Professor Louise Waite
The IAA enables a step-change in the University of Leeds' ability to deliver impact from our social science research. We have considerable experience of developing and leading an impact strategy and related activities; primarily framed through an outcomes approach involving building engagement with users to accelerate the translation of research outputs into impacts. This new IAA award is allowing us to strengthen and transform our approach from one that conceives impact as an outcome to one that is led by an understanding of knowledge exchange and impact as rooted in relationships, processes and practices.
We are building capacity from the outset and sustaining longer-term support for co-production between researchers and users across the lifecourse of research. The new IAA award is centrally driven by university values of collaboration, compassion, inclusivity and integrity, aligning with and delivering our commitment to pursuing collaboration to achieve societal impact.
We are achieving this through 3 connected key delivery pillars: capacity building activities that are enabling us to enhance impact culture through learning how to better co-design and co-produce research for positive societal impact, responsive mode (bottom-up ideas, innovations and risk taking) and strategic mode (opportunities to develop KE and impact skills within defined areas of strategic importance and to develop legacies through long term impact).