In recent times, it is has become difficult if not impossible to discuss research without considering the 'impact of impact'.  Whilst many of us have always been interested in working for impact, the intensification of political focus on impact is powerfully influencing our research and our publication practices in new ways. For example, in many Universities, academics are being encouraged to ensure that their work is published in high impact journals. Other examples include academics being advised to only seek out research partners from top tiered Universities based on world rankings.  At the same time research funding bodies are demanding that we are able to both demonstrate and measure the impact of our research on policy or practice- effectively we need to demonstrate the societal benefits of our work.  The increasing emphasis on impact has many implications for our day to day work from how we plan and conduct our research to how we work to translate our research findings. 

In this interactive workshop will explore the impact of impact, and continue the discussion we started up at ECER 2018 on the politics of health education research.  The objective is to create a space for our reflections on the forces driving the impact agenda and their effects, and on the barriers as well as openings in understandings of research translation and research impact. We also want to provide a space for sharing some of the different ways academics in health and wellbeing education are working creatively and strategically to translate or disseminate research for impact.

The workshop is organised as an interactive session that includes a number of brief presentations combined with a series of interactive small group discussions. Presentations will serve as ‘provocations’ that participants will be able to draw from, and respond to, in the small group discussions that follow. The main aim is to provide participants with an opportunity to share their perspectives and practices related to impact from different contexts. The main questions the workshop will address are: • What is the impact of ‘impact politics’ on health education research? • How do experiences and perspectives differ in health education research and why? • How can we work strategically to enhance our research impact? Presentations include: Associate Professor Monica Carlsson –Modeling understandings of how we might enhance the mediation and impact of health education research Professor Venka Simovska –Different perspectives on 'Impact' and how these affect research practices Dr Deana Leahy - Exhibiting Impact: Using exhibitions as a way to enhance research impact Associate Professor Katie Fitzpatrick - Making policy in health education: Stories from a New Zealand

The presentations and discussions are important for the Research Network as we are interested to explore how impact agendas are shaping research in health education. We are also interested in sharing stories related to different ways that people might work to negotiate and/or subvert the new impact agendas being forced upon researchers.

Ball, S. (2015). Education, governance and the tyranny of numbers, Journal of Educational Policy, 30, 3 299-301 Ball, S. (2015). Subjectivity as a Site of Struggle: Refusing Neoliberalism? British Journal of Sociology of Education 37. Biesta, G. (2019). Flipping the system, but in which direction? Reclaiming education as a public concern. In D. Netolicky, J. Andrews and C. Patterson (eds.). In Flip the system Australia: What matters in Education. London: Routledge Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the H-Index? Metric Assemblages in the Contemporary Academy. The Sociological Review, 60. Connell, RW. (2013). The Neoliberal Cascade and Education: An Essay on the Market Agenda and its Consequences. Critical Studies in Education 54 Rickinson, M., Sebba, J., Edwards A. (2011) Improving Research through User Engagement. Routledge. Schwandt, T. (2005) On Modeling Our Understanding of the Practice Fields. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 13, 3.