{"id":1613,"date":"2025-09-11T12:39:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2025-09-11T12:39:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:39:52","slug":"what-is-research-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/2025\/09\/11\/what-is-research-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Research Impact?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Have you ever been asked to explain why your research matters beyond academia? More and more funders want to know not just <\/strong><em><strong>what<\/strong><\/em><strong> you are studying, but <\/strong><em><strong>why it makes a difference<\/strong><\/em><strong> \u2014 for society, the economy, the environment, or even for future knowledge creation. This is where the concept of research impact comes in.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Research\nfunders increasingly expect applicants to explain what kind of impact their\nresearch will have. The question of impact, however, is a complex one \u2014 it is\nclosely tied to the very nature of the research itself. For example, describing\nthe impact of fundamental research in physics looks very different from\nexplaining the impact of a study on the barriers to competitiveness faced by\nsmall Finnish companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the\nmost common ways to break down the different dimensions of impact is through\nthe framework known as <strong>PESTLE<\/strong>. PESTLE is used to analyze external\nfactors that may affect an organization, project, or decision. The\nacronym stands for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Political<\/strong> \u2013 government policies,\n     stability, regulations, taxation, trade rules<\/li><li><strong>Economic<\/strong> \u2013 economic growth, inflation,\n     exchange rates, employment, interest rates<\/li><li><strong>Social (Socio-cultural)<\/strong> \u2013 demographics, cultural\n     trends, lifestyle changes, education, attitudes<\/li><li><strong>Technological<\/strong> \u2013 innovation, automation,\n     R&amp;D, digital transformation, technological change<\/li><li><strong>Legal<\/strong> \u2013 laws, regulations, labor\n     standards, intellectual property, compliance<\/li><li><strong>Environmental (Ecological)<\/strong> \u2013 sustainability, climate\n     change, environmental regulations, resource availability<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Depending\non the research, impact may fall within one or several of these categories. It\nis also important to remember that PESTLE is just one way to structure impact.\nIt does not, for instance, account for <strong>academic impact<\/strong> \u2014 and sometimes\nthe most significant contribution of a project is the development of a new\nmethod or approach within the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To help researchers describe impact, various tools have been developed. One example is the <strong>Impact Helper<\/strong> website created by Research Funding Services at the University of Oulu, which gathers useful information on how to think about and present research impact. It also offers a one-page <strong>Impact Plan<\/strong> that can guide you in mapping the potential impact of your research idea and considering its different dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Please contact Research Funding Services if you would like support in writing the impact section of your application. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever been asked to explain why your research matters beyond academia? More and more funders want to know not just what you are studying, but why it makes <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/2025\/09\/11\/what-is-research-impact\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[151,152,80,10,81],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academic-impact","tag-funder","tag-impact","tag-research-funding","tag-societal-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1615,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions\/1615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/research-funding-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}