Openness, accessibility and research impact
In reflecting on the relationship between open knowledge and my own professional practice, I’ve been thinking about the links between openness, Open Access publications and the societal and economic benefits of academic research.
As a Knowledge Exchange and Impact Officer in the Faculty of Humanities, I support academic colleagues to realise the non-academic benefits of their research. Research impact is defined by HEFCE as “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia”. This, in my opinion, has always been an important element of academic research (surely the whole point of doing research is to make a difference?). However, it has only relatively recently been given a policy definition and is now often referred to as the ‘impact agenda’. The UK Research Councils are keen to demonstrate the benefits of their investment in research to society, and this is reflected in the RCUK policy on Open Access:
“As bodies charged with investing public money in research, the Research Councils take very seriously their responsibilities in making the outputs from this research publicly available — not just to other researchers, but also to potential users in business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general tax‐paying public.”
So RCUK (and other funders) see greater social and economic benefit from research as an argument for Open Access. This is a welcome development; if academic research is to make a difference, we need to share new knowledge with those who can benefit from it, and publishing openly is a way of doing this. Journal articles hidden behind paywalls do not easily reach the non-academic stakeholders (politicians, doctors, patient groups, teachers and journalists, among many others) who stand to benefit from the findings of research.
Whilst there is evidence that Open Access publications are cited more frequently, the links between Open Access and the societal and economic benefits of research are less clear. This is despite the assertion by HEFCE that Open Access “delivers social benefits through increased public understanding of research”. It’s great that there is a drive to make the findings of research publicly available. However, I do not think that Open Access publishing alone can increase the non-academic impact of research; in my experience an extra step is required to translate research findings into an accessible format.
One way in which I support academic colleagues to enhance research impact is to advise on strategies or activities that they can carry out to reach and communicate with non-academic stakeholders. Often, I will assist colleagues at the bid writing stage, when funders of prospective projects ask applicants to explain the potential benefits of their proposed research outside academia, and to make a plan for realising those benefits. For RCUK bids, this means writing an impact summary and a Pathways to Impact statement. I’ve noticed, as I discuss ideas with researchers and comment on draft Pathways to Impact documents, that colleagues usually include open forms of dissemination in their plans: “We will make our findings freely available on a dedicated project website”; “Findings will be communicated via the project’s Twitter account and Facebook page”; “We will write a piece for The Conversation”; “The tools and resources we produce will be free to download”. These activities are over and above publishing the resulting academic articles in Open Access journals. This is because different audiences access information in different ways. A good Pathways to Impact will therefore include a range of specific activities, tailored to specific stakeholders.
My role also involves working with researchers towards the end of the research process, helping them to communicate their findings to non-academic stakeholders. This might mean supporting colleagues with writing policy briefs and submitting evidence to Parliamentary Select Committees if their findings are relevant to a policy audience, or producing leaflets, posters, videos or exhibitions to reach members of the public.
All of this reflects the fact that, aside from the lack of availability of academic research articles, another barrier faced by non-academics in making use of research findings is the format of scholarly communication. Academic writing has been described as too abstract and convoluted, obscure, needlessly complex and unwieldy. It seems to me that the broader concept of Open Access has two elements — the ‘open’ part (making research available) and the ‘access’ part (making it accessible, or understandable).
Prior to starting this course, ‘openness’ and ‘publication’ were inextricably linked in my mind, with ‘openness’ simply referring to Open Access and its related terminology (what’s the difference between Green and Gold?). However, on reflection, I’ve come to realise that there is much more to openness than Open Access publishing, and I do encounter open knowledge quite frequently in my role. Stakeholders access research in different ways and academic papers are not always the most appropriate method of communicating research findings to a wider audience. Openness is therefore also about making other products of research available, and there are some great examples of this. (For instance, the ClimateJust website draws on University of Manchester research to provide open resources and maps to support climate change adaptation.) So, whilst progress is being made in making scholarly articles freely available, we must also recognise the value of other forms of open communication if academic research is to really make a difference.
