Impact evaluation narratives challenged by PCI researchers in new article

Researchers from the School of Performance and Cultural Industries have published a new open-access article critically examining the growing emphasis on impact evaluation within REF2029.

Professors Leila Jancovich and David Stevenson, in collaboration with Dr Ceri Pitches, are the authors of Failures in Impact Evaluation, published in Research Evaluation. The article challenges dominant approaches to assessing research impact, particularly the assumption that impact should always demonstrate positive change.

While acknowledging the shared commitment across definitions of impact to social responsibility, the authors draw on a growing body of literature that raises concerns about the unintended consequences of this focus. These include the risk of overlooking negative impacts and discouraging critical, exploratory or high-risk research. The article also argues that current approaches can encourage narratives of success that obscure learning from failure.

The paper discusses findings from the FailSpace project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which explored how evaluation practices might better identify, acknowledge and learn from failures. Reflecting the principles of the project itself, the article centres on an autoethnographic evaluation of FailSpace’s own impact, focusing on its shortcomings rather than its successes.

In doing so, the authors consider what might be gained by incorporating metrics of failure into impact evaluation frameworks and what this could mean for future approaches to research assessment.

The article is available open access via Research Evaluation.