RRI and impact: An ‘impossiblist’ agenda for research?

Richard Jones has written a long, profound and thought-provoking blog post on (ir)responsible innovation (stagnation). I read his post alongside a recent post on the social impact of research, its challenges and opportunities. This made me think that we are witnessing a confluence of agendas which are generally only looked at separately but that should …

Black sky research

A few days ago I chatted with an industry-based innovations manager who, in passing, mentioned the word ‘black sky research’. We didn’t get a chance to explore this concept further but the phrase stuck in my mind. Then Philip Moriarty tweeted a link to an article on the threat of the impact agenda to blue …

Exploring the language of impact

I recently collected a few indicative phrases around ‘impact’, one of the pillars of the Research Excellence Framework. In one email a colleague asked me “Can we call that impact?” (400 hits on facebook linked to a TV interview linked to a still speculative health improvement measure). A tweet announced: “That’s what I call impact”, …