ABSTRACT
The advent of the ‘impact’ agenda has presented academics in every field with threats and opportunities alike. Only in recent years has there begun to emerge a reasonable belief that the latter could outweigh the former. Drawing on the experiences and insights of an external consultant, this chapter traces the history of impact assessment and asks whether academia, on balance, is liberated or constrained by an ever-greater focus on research’s wider significance. It examines the challenges scholars face in attempting to quantify the farther-reaching worth of their work and in seeking to repair the longstanding disconnect between academia and the ‘real world’; it considers some of the common mistakes and oversights that have dogged efforts to achieve both of these goals; and it imagines some of the steps a linguistics researcher might usefully take in endeavouring to identify, create and encapsulate impact. In conclusion, this chapter posits that the impact agenda should be seen as an imperfect yet helpful tool – one that might be exactly what academia requires to re-cement its position at the heart of society and the economy and to ward off uncomfortable claims, whether merited or not, of irrelevance and indulgence
