Best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago.

Second best time? Today.

Best time to plan research impact? Before you start planning the research.

Second best time? Now.

Once your topic, question and methods are locked in, you may already have missed opportunities for ground-breaking impact. So, while it’s never too late to start planning for impact, everyone benefits when the first two questions are: Why are we doing research? What do we hope to change through our research?

PinkGold Ltd would love to guide you in shaping and channelling research with real world impact in mind. At each stage of the research process, the potential for impact is being shaped and changed. Leave thinking about impact too late and most of the doors to impact have closed.

Even the best-shaped research will fail to live up to its impact potential if the outputs are locked away in filing cabinets, sat on shelves or use language no-one outside the university can understand.

This is where it gets interesting. How do we communicate for impact? Non-traditional outputs certainly play a role. This is being recognised in the REF28 requirement for at least 5% of submissions to be non-traditional outputs.

Over August, PinkGold will be reflecting and co-designing a suite of services to support anyone who needs to brush up on their planning for impact. Whether you need workshops in how to plan for impact or hands-on support to plan and co-create non-traditional outputs, we will have you covered.

If you want to be on our early birds list, fill out the contact form. The Early Birds list will get a chance to see and book our new services a week before we advertise publicly.

Winner of Bangor University’s Vice Chancellor Award for Research Impact Planning, 2015