Given the time and resources that can be spent on knowledge exchange activities, it is important to establish how effective they have been in helping you meet your original goals for doing knowledge exchange.
Revisit your objectives and evaluate what you set out to achieve. Evaluation can be formal or informal. It can include ongoing elements as well as end of activity reflections and assessments.
You should also put in place resources – including staff time and specialist input from evaluators – to evaluate how your knowledge exchange activities have influenced other researchers, contacts and stakeholders.
It is important to keep a record of activities associated with research impact throughout the research lifecycle. This helps to maintain networks with potential stakeholders and eases the process of evaluating research impact. Updating your grant award record in researchfish regularly will help this process.
It is also advisable to review the impact of your knowledge exchange activities as part of a mid term assessment of your research’s progress. Involving other researchers and the intended beneficiaries of your activities will inform you if you should continue with what you have planned, adjust the activities or replace them with others that could be more effective.
Once your research is complete, you should make arrangements for information about your research to be available for users some years afterwards. This includes non-academic stakeholders. ESRC publishes summaries of all the research we fund on the Gateway to Research website.