In our iPEN workshops, and especially our Communicating your impact module, we talk about how to engage your stakeholders (or engage new ones) and how we need to be clear about what the call to action is.

Given the competing priorities people are likely to be balancing, they need to see enough value in what you're asking them to do to be prepared to do 'something' for you. An effective call to action is important if we care about impact, as without our partners, collaborators, and stakeholders, we have much less chance of the ripples from our research turning into waves.

In our workshops we talk about how we can learn from the 'storytelling' techniques which are widely used by successful public speakers. Guidance given to TED Talks presenters for example, draws heavily on these principles.

 If you're looking for a quick read on what this all means, and what you might need to be thinking about next time you're asked to talk to a group of people that are important to your research take a look at this short read from Duarte on how to develop the best big idea for your presentation.

The article gives some great tips on things like:

• how to think about what the takeaway message might be
• how to build a distinct 'point of view' to catch your audience's attention
• how to figure out what's at stake for your listener, so you can engage them effectively

And if this piques your interest, you might like to follow this up with another short post from Duarte on how to influence through story.

For more ideas and tips, check out our Communicating Your Impact resources page, or get in touch to come along to our next workshop.

Designing and executing great research means getting your research questions right. They provide us with a scaffolding that keeps us targeted on what we need to focus on and deliver.

​In a nutshell, MS Srinivasan (Principal Scientist, NIWA) found that although he was producing what he thought was helpful information for farmers so they could irrigate more efficiently, his outputs weren’t leading to farmers doing anything differently. 

​Through their use of a co-innovation approach, their multi-disciplinary team developed a set of 12 questions (building on work by Donald Schön). These helped to ‘unlock’ their understanding of the context their research was happening in. 

Engaging farmers and other stakeholders through the use of these 12 questions helped MS and the team design a fit-for-purpose project. Then once the project was up and running, these questions were used again, to enable healthy reflection (with their stakeholders) on the progress of the project. 

Find out how the questions were developed and used and find links to publications: 12 Questions Scientists Should Ask Stakeholders to Increase Research Impact. 

The OLW team regularly share examples of how they are designing and delivering impact through their research. If you want to learn more subscribe to their newsletter!