Jancovich, L. orcid.org/0000-0003-0381-1557, Pitches, C. and Stevenson, D. (2025) Failures in impact evaluation. Research Evaluation, 34. rvaf033. ISSN: 0958-2029
Abstract
While many definitions of research impact exist, what most share is a belief in the responsibility of research, and researchers, to support positive change in wider society. But this article outlines the growing body of literature on both evaluation and impact that raises concerns with this approach. On the one hand an assumption of positive change may not only ignore the potential for negative impacts but also discourage research which is critical, exploratory or risky. The authors of this article further argue it may encourage narratives of success that mask stories of failure. This article discusses The FailSpace project, research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which examined how evaluation might better identify, acknowledge, and learn from failures This article embodies the principles of FailSpace by reflecting on the failures, rather than successes, of this research project, regarding its intended impact based on findings of an autoethnographic evaluation of FailSpace’s impact. In so doing the authors consider what might be gained from the inclusion of failure metrics in impact evaluations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | impact; evaluation; failure |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > Performance and Cultural Industries (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) AH/R008760/1 AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) AH/R008760/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jul 2025 09:21 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jul 2025 09:22 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/reseval/rvaf033 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:229775 |