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Question 1: Please describe how your research has
been implemented?
Although it might not always be the first question,
this is a question that is increasingly being asked of
all Australian researchers by their funders – what’s
the impact of their research? And by that the funding
authority means the impact above and beyond the
impact in the scientific literature and on other scientists
(which we often measure by citations to our papers).
But before we panic and rush out to try to get a
manager or policy-maker to take an action the day
after reading one of our papers, let’s try to dissect what
this request means, and even if the question itself is
sensible.
Let’s first think about what constitutes an ‘impact’.
The first step on the road to impact, after having the
brilliant idea and doing the research, is reporting the
results. This is done through avenues like publications
in the peer-reviewed literature, books, seminars, this
magazine, and direct conversation. This invariably
occurs somewhere between 1 and 5 years after the
research was started.
The second step is that a policy-maker or manager
modifies their plans to take into account this research.
Often we don’t know that this is happening, and hence
it’s hard to record. For example, I’m told that our work
on cost efficient decision-making is having an impact
locally and globally on how people plan (Possingham et
al. 2001, Wilson et al. 2007) but my evidence is largely
hearsay.
The third step is that the plans are put in place – here
we may get some more evidence of impact because we
can observe the action – like the rezoning of the Great
Barrier Reef being informed by our software Marxan.
In that particular case the gap between Ian Ball
starting work on Marxan and the action, the plan being
implemented in 2004, was about 10 years.
Finally we would like to see a real outcome, like
financial savings from cost-efficient decision-making,
or a recovery in the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Given the variability in ecological and socio-economic
systems, detecting a significant outcome (after the
action) would be expected to take ten or more years.
In summary, before our research delivers a real
outcome, the “holy pinnacle of impact”, we must: have
an idea, do the research, report the discovery, hope
that reporting changes a plan, pray the plan is enacted
and have faith that the outcome is measured and
positive. So it seems that we won’t really know whether
new research initiated in 2007 was any use for, at the
very best, about 10 years. Should the director of AEDA
panic?
Some applied researchers respond to the need to
deliver fast impact by spending more time with the
people at the coal face – out in the paddock or in a
meeting room in a government agency. This is a valid
but time consuming response to panicking about
impact. In extreme cases it pushes us into answering
very local problems in very short time frames, often
delivering science that was discovered years ago. Is this
good use of the time of the world’s best conservation
biologists? Should we sacrifice long-term fundamental
and globally significant gains for the short term thrill of
seeing outcomes on the ground quickly?
The answer to these questions will be different for
every scientist. Some time at the coal face is good,
invariably because real problems give rise to new
research directions. However some Australian research
institutions and individuals have lost their place at
the cutting edge trying to deliver research to every
manager and policy-maker face-to-face. I would
recommend a sensible balance.
We should not allow the request for evidence of
implementation of research results, impact, to push
us off the cutting edge of our field. However, we
also need to work on cost-efficient and appropriate
communication to a wide audience and engagement
with enough managers and policy-makers to inspire
useful research and expedite its adoption.
Translating your best work into an article for Decision
Point is one way of reaching that happy compromise
between impact and discovery. I urge you to consider
the possibilities.
Hugh Possingham
Director, AEDA
h.possingham@uq.edu.au
Papers cited
Possingham HP, Andelman SJ, Noon BR, Trombulak S,
and Pulliam HR (2001),
Making smart conservation decisions.
Pages 225– 244 in ME Soul´e and GH Orians,
editors. Conservation biology: research priorities for
the next decade. Island Press, Washington D.C.
Wilson KA, Underwood EC, Morrison SA, et al. (2007)
Conserving biodiversity efficiently: What to
do,where, and when. PLoS Biology 5: 1850-1861.