Evaluation and Impact

Evaluating our work and examining the impact of societal engagement activities at Imperial is an essential part of our remit. We carefully follow the results of our programmes, events and funding distribution and monitor the impact they have. On this page, we detail the ways in which we do this.

Reports and reflections

We evaluate all of our programmes to understand who took part, their experiences, and any outcomes. Through evaluation we can better know whether we are meeting our aims, whether we are engaging those we hoped to, and how to improve what we do. We hope that others can also learn from our reflections – please get in touch if you would like to know more or to share your own work with us.

Our evidence base

We are constantly learning about the most effective, inclusive and impactful ways to engage. The research, insights and evidence we draw on to inform our work includes Science Capital, identity and belonging literature, participatory research, and Public Attitude to Science surveys.

Data and monitoring

As well as evaluating our programmes, we monitor a wide range of data to help inform our work and evidence our impact. This information comes from internal and external sources, such as the Residents Dashboard, White City Dashboard, and Participation Log.
 
The Residents Dashboard provides information about people who live in London. We use this data to benchmark our location-based engagement and identify regions and schools in London that might be underrepresented in STEM.  

We monitor who at Imperial takes part in our Public and Community Engagement activities. The Participation Log summarises this information and draws in additional information from the staff and student directories.  

Engagement impact

Societal engagement contributes to Imperial delivering impactful research, teaching and work within wider society. Some of the ways we report on the impact of societal engagement include: the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) narrative; the Research Excellence Framework (REF); HEBCI; Civic agenda; Strategy, and Imperial in numbers.  

Evaluation support  

Are you looking for advice or guidance on how to evaluate your own engagement work? Try our Evaluation toolkit, or book in for an advice session with a member of the Public Engagement team.

Get in touch  

For more information on societal engagement evaluation and impact, contact: 
- Amy Seakins, Head of Engagement (Evaluation and Capacity Building): a.seakins@imperial.ac.uk
- Emma Watson, Evaluation Officer (Outreach and Engagement) e.watson13@imperial.ac.uk 
- Or read more about the work of the Outreach team

This topic and more are covered in discussions held by the Societal Engagement Reading Group.