Engagement, impact, and SDG alignment

Kudos (research-impact platform)

Kudos is a free platform on which an author or institution takes a Crossref-DOI-registered publication and (1) attaches a plain-language explanation of the work, (2) enriches it with supporting links, data, or media, and (3) shares that package through built-in social/email distribution tools, with usage, download, and attention-metric data reported back afterward. It does not register DOIs, host full text, or index the literature itself -- it is an outreach and measurement layer sitting on top of publications already registered elsewhere.

AUTM Better World Project

The AUTM Better World Project is a public storytelling and awards initiative run by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) that collects curated case studies of specific inventions, born from federally funded or institutional research, that were licensed and commercialized into products, services, or companies with a documented real-world benefit. An item qualifies as a Better World Project 'story' when it names a specific technology, traces it back to a specific research institution's technology transfer office, and narrates the licensing/commercialization path in lay terms aimed at a public or policymaker audience -- not when it is simply an internal TTO metric or a generic description of what technology transfer does.

Race Equality Charter (REC)

The Race Equality Charter (REC) is an award-mark scheme run by Advance HE, the UK sector body for higher education and research quality, that recognises universities and research institutes for identifying and addressing structural barriers to race equality among staff and students. Modelled on the same self-assessment/award-mark structure as Advance HE's Athena SWAN gender-equality charter, REC requires a member institution to convene a self-assessment team, analyse ethnicity-disaggregated staff and student data across recruitment, promotion, pay and attrition, gather qualitative evidence of lived experience, and submit an application with a costed, time-bound action plan for independent peer review by an Advance HE panel. Institutions that meet the bar receive a Bronze or Silver award (there is no Gold tier, unlike Athena SWAN) tied to delivering that action plan.

Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF)

Research England's national exercise for assessing and benchmarking how English higher education providers perform knowledge exchange activity -- reported across seven perspectives and scored in quintiles relative to a peer cluster, rather than as research quality (REF) or teaching quality (TEF).

SSHRC Partnership Grant

An SSHRC Partnership Grant is the largest and longest-running funding instrument in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's partnership-funding stream: a two-stage, competitively adjudicated award of up to $2.5 million over 4 to 7 years, supporting a formal, already-substantiated research partnership between an academic team and one or more non-academic partner organizations. What distinguishes it operationally from SSHRC's smaller partnership instruments (Partnership Engage Grants, Partnership Development Grants) is scale and maturity: a Partnership Grant funds an established collaborative governance structure -- shared intellectual leadership, a defined program of research, training, and knowledge-mobilization activities, and a mandatory minimum cash/in-kind contribution from partners -- rather than a first-time or exploratory partnership still being tested or built.

Partnership Development Grant

A funding request qualifies as a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant when it is submitted by a researcher affiliated with an eligible Canadian postsecondary institution to Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and involves a genuine non-academic partner organization that will help shape (not merely receive the outputs of) a bounded, developmental research or knowledge-mobilization activity. The mechanism funds $75,000 to $250,000 over 1 to 3 years (2026 competition figures) and is explicitly developmental in purpose — testing or building a partnership approach rather than sustaining an already-mature, large-scale collaboration.

Athena SWAN Gender Equality Charter

An accreditation charter run by Advance HE that recognises an institution's or department's commitment to gender equality in higher education and research, awarded at Bronze, Silver, or Gold level after a structured self-assessment of staff/student gender data and working practices and a resulting time-bound action plan. Originated in the UK in 2005 (as Athena SWAN, focused on women in STEMM), broadened in scope in 2015, relaunched as a 'transformed' Charter in 2021, and now has internationally-adapted counterpart schemes (Athena Swan Ireland, SAGE in Australia, SEA Change in the US, Dimensions in Canada).

Participatory research

Research in which people affected by the topic under study — community members, patients, practitioners or service users — share power over one or more phases of the research process (framing questions, designing methods, collecting or interpreting data, or disseminating findings) as co-researchers rather than as subjects or a consulted stakeholder group. The defining test is who controls the process, not which specific method is used.

Implementation science

The scientific study of methods and strategies for embedding evidence-based practices and interventions into real-world policy and practice settings, addressing the gap between 'what works' in a controlled study and its sustained real-world use.

Bench-to-bedside

A phrase used in biomedical research to describe the translation of laboratory ('bench') discoveries into clinical practice ('bedside'), encompassing the T1 stage of translational research.

Translational research

Research explicitly organised around moving findings from basic discovery through to clinical, practical, or population-level application, typically described through a staged (T0-T4) model of successive translation.

Action research

A research approach in which researchers and practitioners work together to investigate a practical problem and develop solutions through iterative cycles of planning, action, observation and reflection.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR)

A collaborative research approach that equitably involves community members, organisational representatives and researchers in all aspects of the research process, with shared decision-making and the aim of combining knowledge with action for social change.

Lived-experience expert

A person whose personal experience of a condition, situation or issue is recognised as a form of expertise that contributes meaningfully to research, policy or practice alongside professional and academic expertise.

Co-design (research)

The collaborative design of research studies, interventions, services or products with the people who will use them or be affected by them, integrating their knowledge and perspectives from the outset.

Co-production (research)

A research approach in which researchers and stakeholders share authority over the research question, design, conduct, analysis, and dissemination across the entire research lifecycle, not one phase of it.

Engagement metric

A quantitative or structured-qualitative indicator capturing the extent, depth, reach or quality of engagement between researchers and non-academic stakeholders or publics.

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

A governance and research-practice framework asking researchers and innovators to anticipate, reflect on, and be responsive to the ethical, social and environmental implications of their work throughout the research process, rather than only after the fact.

Mission-oriented research

Research and innovation activity organised around explicit, bold, measurable, time-bound societal goals ('missions') that are broad and interdisciplinary in scope, rather than around a single discipline or open-ended discovery agenda.

SDG-Aligned Research

Research that is explicitly designed, framed or assessed in relation to specific Sustainable Development Goals and their targets, with the intent of contributing to their achievement.

SDG 17 (Partnerships)

The seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal: strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.

SDG 9 (Industry Innovation)

The ninth Sustainable Development Goal: build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation.

SDG 4 (Quality Education)

The fourth Sustainable Development Goal: ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

SDG mapping (research output)

The practice of classifying research outputs, projects, or programmes against one or more Sustainable Development Goals or their underlying targets, typically using a keyword-based, citation-based, or machine-learning classification method.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

A set of 17 goals, adopted by UN member states in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, that the research community increasingly uses to frame funding priorities, project design, and impact reporting.

ECSA (European Citizen Science Association)

A European network of citizen-science practitioners, researchers and project owners that promotes the practice, quality and recognition of citizen science across Europe and internationally.

Citizen science

A research method in which members of the public contribute directly to data collection, protocol design, or analysis -- not merely as subjects or an audience -- ranging from contributory through collaborative to co-created participation.

Patient partner

A patient, carer, or member of the public who contributes lived experience to shaping research design, conduct, analysis, or dissemination as an active collaborator -- involvement -- as distinct from a research participant (participation) or an engagement audience.

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)

Research being carried out 'with' or 'by' members of the public rather than 'to', 'about' or 'for' them, as defined by INVOLVE (the UK national advisory group for PPI).

Public engagement with research (PER)

Engagement activity directly connected to a specific piece of research -- involving publics in shaping questions, dialogue during the work, or engagement with findings -- as distinct from broader public engagement with higher education or science that need not tie to any one project.

Public engagement (PE)

The myriad ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public, often involving two-way interaction to generate mutual benefit, as defined by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE).

Knowledge exchange (KE)

A two-way process through which knowledge, ideas and experiences are shared between researchers and non-academic partners (such as businesses, public services, third sector, communities) to mutual benefit.

Knowledge mobilisation (KMb)

The processes by which research evidence and other forms of knowledge are made accessible, useful and used by communities, practitioners, policymakers and other stakeholders to inform decisions and action.

Knowledge translation (KT)

The process of moving research knowledge into use -- synthesising, disseminating, exchanging and applying it -- to improve outcomes and strengthen practice or policy, anchored in CIHR's framework distinguishing end-of-grant KT from integrated KT.

Pathway to impact

A mandatory, standalone section of UKRI grant applications, required from 2009 and formally removed from March 2020, in which applicants identified likely beneficiaries, planned activities, and the mechanisms linking research outputs to societal effects. Historical, not a current requirement.

Theory of change

An explicit, testable map of how and why a research project, programme or intervention is expected to lead to specified outcomes, identifying the causal pathway and necessary intermediate conditions.

Impact evaluation

A systematic assessment of the effects a piece of research or a research programme has had -- often extending beyond its own stated objectives -- using methods such as counterfactual or comparison-group designs, contribution analysis, or theory-based evaluation. Typically conducted after project completion, sometimes at a portfolio level across many awards, and distinct from a single project's end-of-project review.

Impact case study (REF)

See 'REF impact case study' (responsible-assessment). A structured narrative documenting how specific research has produced effects beyond academia, submitted as part of UK Research Excellence Framework assessment.

Environmental impact

The environmental footprint generated by research activity itself — energy use, emissions, water use, waste, and procurement associated with laboratories, fieldwork, computing, and research travel — as distinct from a research project's findings contributing to environmental outcomes, or the UK REF's separate 'impact' assessment concept.

Cultural impact

Cultural impact is a category of non-academic research impact concerned with effects on museums, galleries, performance, broadcast media, creative practice, heritage conservation, and public understanding of history, identity, and the arts. It is distinguished from academic impact (effect on a field of scholarship, evidenced through citation and uptake by other researchers) and from economic impact (effect on commercial value, jobs, or productivity) by being evidenced through audience engagement, critical reception, and expert testimony rather than metrics or financial figures.

Policy impact

The contribution that research makes to the formulation, content or implementation of public policy at local, national or international levels.

Economic impact

A quantifiable financial or employment effect of research -- jobs, revenue, licensing income, cost savings, or spin-out value -- evidenced through economic modelling, payback methods, or documented case-based outcomes.

Societal impact

A documented change in public knowledge, attitudes, social practice, community wellbeing, or civil-society institutions attributable, at least in part, to research, typically evidenced through contribution analysis or structured case studies rather than a single metric.

Academic impact

The contribution that research makes to the advancement of scientific knowledge and to other research communities, typically evidenced through citations, methods uptake, theoretical influence and training of researchers.

Research impact

An effect on, change, or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy, services, health, environment, or quality of life that occurs beyond academia and can be attributed, at least in part, to a specific piece of research.

MMLU benchmark

The Massive Multitask Language Understanding benchmark, a 57-subject, 15,908-question multiple-choice test spanning elementary through professional-level knowledge, used to measure and compare broad-coverage language-model knowledge.