Darren Hunter of the RCUK Research Outcomes Project sent round the email below to all HEIs today to advise of a change in the way that Research Councils collect records of outcomes and impacts associated with research they fund. From summer 2011 the AHRC, BBSRC and EPSRC will join the ESRC in using an online system to collect information on outcomes and impacts during the lifetime of and following a funded project. There is no limit set on the duration of this reporting requirement:

Research Councils UK (RCUK) are moving away from collecting this information only at the end of funding agreements and are establishing an ongoing dialogue with the research community which allows outcomes to be reported at any point within the funding agreement and beyond. This recognises that impacts from research can be realised some time after grants or funding agreements have been completed.

We are now developing the existing Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Society Today (EST) system for wider use by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The Research Councils have agreed the business requirements and outcome types which are based on consultations with focus groups representing a range of users and funders, including university research managers and representatives from HEFCE (to ensure alignment with the REF requirements). A developer has been engaged to configure the existing system to meet the new requirements and the system is expected to go-live in summer 2011 following a pilot exercise. We hope to migrate much of the existing data we hold to minimise the burden on Research Organisations, and to accommodate upload of data from existing Research Organisation data collection systems.

We will be sending regular emails to keep you up to date with the progress of the project, but if you have any questions or queries, please do let us know by emailing researchoutcomes@rcuk.ac.uk

Although NERC, MRC and STFC haven’t yet adopted this approach, we should expect them to do so if this pilot phase is a success. HEIs are increasingly adopting their own systems for capturing and collating research outcome and impact information in the run up to the REF, for example the University of Glasgow’s ENRICH project. One of the future challenges will be ensuring that these systems integrate with research council systems to ensure there is no duplication of effort and data input.