Assess Your Research Impact

The Research Impact Framework (RIF), created by Trinity College Dublin, provides a structure for crafting audience-focused, evidence-based impact narratives that connect scholarly activities and their impact indicators to scientific and societal outcomes, grouped in four impact areas:

1. Knowledge generation
2. Development of individuals and collaborations
3. Supporting the research community
4. Contributions to broader society

The RIF provides five building blocks for crafting an impact narrative:

1. Impact areas
2. Outcome statement
3. Scholarly activity
4. Evidence
5. Sources

The RIF helps researchers learn how to:

• Organize their narrative
• Document evidence of impact in research outputs, contributions, and activities
• Select examples of activities and outcomes that demonstrate quality and impact

The Becker Medical Library model is a framework for documenting evidence of research impact across five categories:

1. Advancement of knowledge
2. Clinical implementation
3. Community benefit
4. Legislation and policy
5. Economic benefit

The model is intended to supplement publication analysis in order to provide a more robust and comprehensive perspective of research impact. While it was created to support assessment of biomedical research impact, it is a useful tool for all disciplines.

The video below, from the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, introduces the Becker Model and how to use its list of indicators of impact to tell impact stories.