On 6 December, the University of Bristol Business School held an in-person Impact and Engagement Workshop dedicated to Business School colleagues with contributions from the Research and Enterprise Division (RED), PolicyBristol and the Public Engagement Office, as well as the University of Bristol Business School academics with impact experience.
Eloise Meller of the RED Impact Development team discussed how best to define research impact, and how to build it into a funding bid, and described the support her team provides to UOB researchers. From PolicyBristol, Alexia MacDonald shared resources and guidance for researchers looking to influence policy, and Jenny Jopson from the Public Engagement team spoke to the different types of engagement and how best to incorporate it into the research lifecycle.
Following on this, two Business School academics described their own experiences with impact and engagement. Ian Tonks, Professor of Finance, discussed how his work with the Bank of England led to research identifying the Tobin Portfolio Balance Channel, an influential output that was later referred to in a speech by Mario Draghi during his time as the President of the European Central Bank.
Dr Vanessa Beck, Associate Professor in Work and Organisation, talked about the engagement she’s had with various public organisations as part of her research into the effects of menopause in the workplace. She offered frank advice about the challenges of measuring research impact and how to embed it into a research project from an early stage.
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