Impact Workshop (24): Statistical Engagement and Impact case studies for REF 2020

Abstract:

There is growing interest from companies to learn more about data science and many are turning to Universities for support. Universities are keen to engage with business and industry because of the valuable research opportunities and also because they need to show societal impact as part of their submission to periodic Research Excellence Framework assessments.

In this talk, I will describe how we engage with companies through knowledge transfer partnerships and will outline a successful impact case study from REF 2014 that arose from our collaborative statistical research. The talk will be illustrated by case studies from our current partnerships with small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

About the Speaker:

Shirley Coleman, PhD is Principal Statistician and Technical Director of the Industrial Statistics Research Unit, Newcastle University and a visiting scholar at the Faculty of Economics, Ljubljana University, Slovenia. She works on data analytics in SMEs and the energy sector and contributed a highly ranked impact case study to Newcastle University’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework. She is a past President of the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics (ENBIS), an elected member of the International Statistics Institute and a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society, instrumental in mentoring early career statisticians and developing relations with business and industry. She is an active writer, reviewer and conference organiser interested in helping to address the challenges of embedding statistical thinking in the wider community.

Background on the Workshops:

Impact beyond the academia is a key element of the University's knowledge exchange (KE) strategy. Furthermore, Impact will become an element of assessment in the UGC RAE 2020, carrying a weighting of 15%. The UK experience in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 indicates that it is important to collect evidence of such impacts.

The Knowledge Exchange Office is organising workshops to be conducted by researchers who have hands-on experience in preparing impact statements and impact case studies for the UK REF 2014 or research councils overseas. The workshops will be of interest not only to colleagues who want to maximise the impact of their research, but also to those who coordinate research developments and research assessment in Faculties.