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Ex post Impact Pathways - A guide to conducting workshops for impact appraisal

Departments

Ecosystem Co-Design Societal Impact

Abstract

This guide is meant to assist in the planning and conducting of a workshop for the structured assessment and appraisal of impacts and impact pathways for research projects near or subsequent to their completion. It describes the underlying steps and suggestions for independent planning and implementation of workshops. These workshops serve to enhance the understanding of impacts resulting from a research project, allowing for the demonstration and reporting of impacts e.g. to funders or a comparative appraisal of different initiatives, as well as to enhance impact literacy by individual researchers or at the institutional level. The guide draws on a series of workshops conducted in 2022 at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in the frame of the project LeNa Shape, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant numbers 01UV2110F-G). LeNa Shape addresses sustainability and the societal responsibility of research, and has among its goals to enable researchers in reflecting upon their research activity, including its societal impacts. For more information on the concept of research with societal responsibility and available tools to increase capacity for such research, see the material developed by LeNa Shape (2023, 2024). The guide contains a description of the different parts of the workshop, a suggested schedule to assist in the time planning, and templates for the creation of whiteboards. The workshop can be conducted both on site and virtually. The use of pre-arranged virtual whiteboards for collaborative work is strongly recommended, particularly if workshops are held virtually. Familiarity with the concepts of societal impacts and impact planning is not required for participants, but workshop organizers and facilitators should have a sound understanding of the underlying concepts and approaches. As a broad literature and a wealth of resources exist for impact assessment, this guide does not provide an in-depth background of the methods used, but includes references for further reading. The workshop described in this guide has been developed in the context of natural resource use and management. While the general concepts are widely applicable to different research fields, some of the examples and approaches used (in particular the impact criteria and indicator sets) will need to be adjusted according to context and research fields.

Cite this activity

Pfeifer L. and Ferse S. (2024) Ex post Impact Pathways - A guide to conducting workshops for impact appraisal 10.21244/zmt.2024.002

Details

Research topics
Date 01.01.2024
Open Access Open Access (open)
Eprints_link https://cris.leibniz-zmt.de/id/eprint/5375

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