Researchers’ Perceptions Of Achieving Impact And Stakeholder Engagement In Pakistan

Researchers familiar with the requirements of funding bodies and the Research Excellence Framework (or similar national strategies used to quantify research excellence) understand the need to address impact and stakeholder engagement outside of academia. This may be difficult to achieve and quantify after the research, but they are integral and vital aspects of all funded projects. Despite changes in thinking about the nature of ‘impact’, many research managers and governance structures equate impact with publication in highly ranked journals Q1 journal output
This paper firstly reviews the ‘whys and wherefores’ of impact and stakeholder engagement; secondly, the situation in Pakistan will be discussed where academic progression is based primarily on the number of research outputs, and thirdly reviews our experiences of teaching stakeholder engagement and impact to researchers in Pakistan as part of the capacity building programme delivered to over 1000 researchers in 2022. The paper closes with a set of recommendations for new researchers.