Being able to measure and demonstrate the impact of your research is important. Funding is often tied to the reach and impact of research as funders want to achieve the best return on their investment. Focusing on impact allows researchers to see the bigger picture and purpose of research rather than the process.

In this blog post, we look at how to measure research impact by both traditional metric-based methods and the real-world impact of research outputs. Read on to find out how to maximize your research impact.

Traditional metrics

Traditional article metrics focus on the measurable reach of research outputs, as well as the impact of the journal it is published in. There are two kinds of metrics to think about when measuring impact through traditional metrics:

Article-level metrics

Article-level metrics allow you to assess the reach and impact of an individual article. These metrics often include statistics such as the number of views, downloads and citations that the article has received. Typically, the publisher of your article will showcase article-level metrics alongside your article. This is the case for articles published with Open Research Europe, where the article-level metrics (views, downloads and citations) are displayed clearly for readers to see.

Journal-level metrics

Journal-level metrics show the reach and impact of a body of work published in any single journal. These metrics include citation metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor™ and CiteScore, annual views and downloads, and speed of publication. Journal-level citation metrics can be a deciding factor for many authors when considering where to publish. They allow for quantitative comparisons between the average citation performance among different publication venues, however they do have limitations. The main downside of journal-level metrics is that they represent the ‘impact’ of the venue, not the individual research outputs themselves.

Creating real world impact

While citation metrics are one of the more widespread measures of research impact, they fail to capture the ‘real-world’ impact of research, focusing instead on the impact of research on the wider scholarly literature. In this section, we’ll look at some other ways to enable and track ‘real-world’ impact by engaging with different stakeholders, such as policymakers and journalists.

Policymakers

Research can provide evidence and suggest a course of action, but it is only policymakers who can translate your findings into effective legislation. To increase your research’s impact on policymakers, you should look to:

• Write an Open Letter alongside your original article. A Research Article may sometimes be the most appropriate format to influence policymaking. But you can also consider using different article types to make your research more accessible for policymaking audiences, such as a Case Study, Case Report, or Open Letter. Open Letters are short, clear, and concise articles suitable for non-specialist audiences. They bring important research, evidence of policy-related issues, and proposed solutions to the attention of local authorities, policymakers, and governments.
• Build relationships with policymakers. Once you have identified the prominent policymakers in your field, make sure to reach out and communicate your newly published work. Along with your research, you should always provide your credentials, contact information and an executive summary of your findings. Change is often incremental; therefore, you also should aim to communicate smaller, achievable policy changes or guideline improvements. Remember to maintain this relationship by communicating regularly.

Media

Engaging with the media can be pivotal when it comes to raising awareness of your research. A research article considered newsworthy will likely contain the following:

• A major research discovery
• Have links to a timely topic or event
• Have the potential to lead real change in society.

As a first step, do some research into what kind of public relations (PR) support is on offer from your publisher and institution’s communications department. Whether you are working independently on your PR or in collaboration with an expert, here are three essential strategies to keep in mind:

• Think audience, think message. Apart from identifying your target audience, you should also decide the one key message you want to convey. When dealing with the media, your message needs to be at the forefront as journalists will likely skim your work. Supporting evidence and additional details can follow at a later stage, if necessary.
• Stay TRUE to your research: Timely, Relevant, Unique and Engaging. Once you’ve thought about your message, you want to stay true to that message. This includes deciding when the right time is to engage with the press. Your pitch needs to be relevant and adapted to your chosen media outlet’s audience. You must also determine what makes your research unique and why the audience will engage with the findings.
• Tell a ‘head and heart’ story. The next step is to tell your research story and back it up with statistics and a case study; statistics typically resonate with your rationale (head) while a case study can speak to your emotions (heart). These two aspects together with some key points can make up a great story that will interest editors and journalists.

The public

The best routes to communicate your research findings to the public are through traditional journalism, such as newspapers, and social media.

Traditional media often appeals to a wider audience, and if you are considering this option you may want to work with your institution’s communications team to pitch your research to the media, using the helpful tips above.

Social media is full of micro-communities, many of which will likely align with the implications of your research. Here are some useful tips on how to promote your article using social media:

• Announce your publication with a link to your article and an ‘elevator pitch’ summary of its significance.
• Tag your co-authors, institution, funder and @OpenResearch_EU. Don’t forget to repost/retweet your co-authors’ announcements.
• Research and include hashtags that your audience is using, including lobbyists, thinktanks and policymakers in your field.
• Include an engaging and relevant image, GIF or video. Different types of visual content are more digestible and can help attract and engage with audiences more effectively than text– always keep in mind that people remember 80% of what they see but only 20% of what they read.
• Reply to your initial post with relevant policy news or updates on your article’s impact.
• Be social! Use hashtags and keywords to search for conversations already happening online that your research might add value to. Interact with these users and share a link to your research to back up your viewpoints.

Measuring real world impact

Unlike with traditional methods of measuring research impact, which can provide a quantifiable impact factor for your research, it can often be more difficult to identify the research impact in the real world. Below are a few examples of how to identify the reach of your research and its impact:

• News stories. If your PR outreach has been successful, it is likely that journalists would have written about your research. In the weeks following publication on Open Research Europe, regularly search for keywords of your research on the web. It is likely that any articles will have similar specific keywords.
• Altmetric scores. While Altmetric scores do consider the citations achieved by the research article, the reach on social media can also be measured. By tracking the social media mentions on X, as well as other mentions across the web, a general view of how your research is performing can be attained. Altmetrics also can be used to track mentions from media outlets in addition to social media mentions, and can be viewed alongside your article on the Open Research Europe website.
• Impacting policy. If your research advises policy or clinical guidelines, chances are that it will be discussed within government. You can check whether your research has been cited in policy documents using online tools such as Overton.