All the tools you need to monitor how well your institution is performing

Monitoring the impact of research within an institution is vital to make further research viable and fundable. There are many ways an institution can measure the effectiveness of research. Here are a few ideas to get you started…

  • Metrics – figures or statistics that help us measure the impact of published work. Citations are the most traditional method of measuring impact but most certainly not the only resource.

Woman holding out a measuring tape across the length of her outstretched arms

  • Usage – easy to count but is sometimes hard to distinguish downloads from actual reading. That’s when other engagement factors, like news coverage and government announcements, can help to determine reading results. Usage is sometimes open to abuse from robots and so not always an accurate count.

  • Altmetrics – can help to measure anything that isn’t a classic citation or download. For example, social media mentions, blogs, news coverage, and policy documents.

Scroll below to see some examples of high impact research and how that impact was measured.

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Case study 1

An article titled ‘Modelling the Cult of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral’ Journal of British Archaeological Association, has great impact results:

17 news outlets were reached in 7 countries including BBC News and Daily Mail in the UK

91 tweets on this article from 75 unique tweeters in 9 countries

Various interactions with significant profiles on X (formerly Twitter) including archaeologist @ticiaverveer (135K followers), proud locals like @CBuryCathedral (19.5K followers), other academics such as @Emma_J_Wells (9.6K followers), and MPs including @GordonMarsden (8K followers)

>3.5K views of the article on Taylor & Francis Online

Case study 2

Social media is a useful tool to increase and monitor impact and engagement with research. As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, Taylor & Francis launched a live X chat on ‘Youth Mental Health’. Several journal editors and experts in the field of Psychology took part…

The live stream had 58,000 views…

and 589 engagements

15,000 views were logged the following day…

and 104 engagements

Therefore, there are many outlets we can use to measure impact, interest, and discussions around research.

Discover more impact resources to share with your authors today