Engagement & Impact for Screen Production at SIGHTLINES Conference 2019

Is it possible to describe the current Engagement and Impact (E&I) agenda, being conducted in Australia through a serial television metaphor?

The original series ran in the UK in 2014. Australia purchased the formatting rights and produced a pilot in 2017. The pilot helped adapt the storylines to Australian conditions, and its success saw the Australian Research Council commission Season 1. You can view it @ ‘Engagement and Impact Assessment 2018–19’. Australian Universities appreciated the high production values and strong impactful narratives.

Overall, the first season received positive reviews from the eight sandstone universities particularly for the ‘Engagement’ episodes. The ‘Impactful’ episodes were well received in the cultural sectors of Arts and Humanities. Strategies are afoot to improve the Return-On-Investment (ROI) for Season 2: Showrunners will plot better narratives for E&I, directors will ensure wide casting calls to select the best impact narrative for each code and producers will work on more co-funding arrangements. Pre-production has begun. Expect S2 to drop in 3 years-time.

How can you get involved? Just describe what you do as a screen practitioner.

Making a film with a community group, exploring an issue through documentary, writing a screen play about a taboo topic. It’s likely that your research may already be meeting an impact agenda! While this is a playful way to presents the complexities of E&I, it shouldn’t diminish the seriousness of the agenda. It has taken a decade to have screen production research accepted as a way to achieve research excellence. Now we find the engagement and impact agenda requires a different approach, or perhaps not — is it possible that impact may allow us to play to our strengths?

Author: Susan Kerrigan