Assessing the Impacts of Engaged Research and Its Use: Evidence and Opportunities

This workshop is co-hosted in partnership with the Transforming Evidence Funders Network (TEFN) to identify opportunities to advance the evidence base about the behavioral and societal changes associated with research processes that engage people with lived experience and evidence users (i.e., engaged research). Among other activities, participants will be asked to help identify the actions funders could take to build out and improve the use of evidence – specifically, evidence about the impacts and outcomes of engaged research.

As engaged research becomes more commonplace, we need to learn from efforts across disparate contexts, compile these learnings into a cohesive evidence base, and improve use of this evidence to inform engaged research efforts. In this workshop, thought leaders from a diverse range of disciplines, issue areas (including healthcare, education, environment, and international development), geographies, and types of expertise will work together to identify existing bodies of scholarship, knowledge gaps, and action steps related to:

• The quality, intensity, and longevity of engagement in the research process,
• Research impact (e.g., use of evidence in decision-making),
• Outcomes of interest (e.g., improved health or educational outcomes)

There is growing interest in the role of engagement between researchers and evidence users and people with lived experience to enhance impact across the research enterprise (called “engaged research”). More empirical evidence is needed about the conditions and components that allow engaged research to deliver impact and improved outcomes across policy, practice, and beyond. The pockets of evidence that do exist are too-often siloed within policy sectors from healthcare to education to environment to international development. And this work raises additional questions, such as about how different particular types of engagement achieve different levels of impact, how research utilization is defined and measured, and how to understand the link between research use and societal impact.

The findings from different countries and regions are also infrequently integrated into a cohesive knowledge base. Moreover, the research on engagement and how it shapes the use of research evidence is conducted across different academic fields from science and technology studies to implementation research to knowledge mobilization and more. The development and sharing of methodologies that measure the effectiveness and impacts of engaged research will be critical to make progress in this area.

Workshop participants will work to identify what existing bodies of scholarship and knowledge gaps there are about how the impacts and outcomes of research are affected by the quality, intensity, and longevity of engagement in the research process. These high-level insights will inform the efforts and investments of public and private funders. This in turn will support the development of the evidence base boundary spanners—and the many other groups working at the intersection of research, policy, and practice—need to better understand and improve engaged research.

• Identify what is already known about the relationship among:
• The quality, intensity, and longevity of engagement in the research process,
• Research impact (e.g., use of evidence in decision-making),
• Outcomes of interest (e.g., improved health or educational outcomes),
• Identify gaps in our collective knowledge – what we can learn across geographies, policy areas, disciplines.
• Build understanding (and awareness of knowledge gaps) about how to achieve equity in and through engaged research.
• Build connections between experts (including groups from outside the academy) and funders across fields who are working on the impact and outcomes associated with engagement in research.
• Identify steps needed to move work in this area forward. Among other activities, participants will be asked to help identify the actions funders could take to build out and improve the use of evidence – specifically, evidence about the impacts and outcomes of engaged research.

• A report that articulates the state of the evidence base on the impacts and outcomes related to the quality, intensity, and longevity of engagement in the research process across the diverse disciplines, issue areas, and geographies represented at the workshop.
• A call to action for workshop participants and other key groups. The target audience(s), content, and form of the call to action should be co-identified by workshop participants to complement the workshop report.