Impact @ Wolverhampton

For Research Staff For Research Students

Innovating Influencing Improving Impacting

In the most recent Research Excellence Framework exercise (REF2021), the University achieved its best ever results. Our research was celebrated for its 'world-leading elements', with 85% of our research internationally recognised or higher.

The UoW submitted 38 impact case studies across 17 Units of Assessment (including two new Units). Most areas submitted were judged to include elements of world-leading research amongst which featured research on changing perceptions of the Black Country, eliminating gender and race discrimination and improving health outcomes for all, research supporting efforts to reduce pandemic food shortages, and boosting women in leadership.

Our REF2021 submission was not only the largest but also the most inclusive submission we made to date. This was recognised by the assessors who commented on our commitment to, and progress with, equality, diversity and inclusion.

Contact us at impact@wlv.ac.uk for more information on how we can help you gain impact from your research, or how our research can help you!

At the University of Wolverhampton, we are passionate about making a positive impact on our students, our local community and beyond. Through collaboration and multi-disciplinary projects, our research contributes to public debate, creates solutions to local, national and global challenges, and preserves and promotes cultural works of international significance. By advancing knowledge, and bringing together excellence and innovation, we challenge perceptions and seek to change the world for the better.

Across the University, scholars within our Research Centres work closely with commercial and civil society partners in a wide range of research and translational projects. From realising intelligent infrastructures to sustainable construction, from the arts in criminal justice to exercise as medicine, from presenting the self in cyberspace to creating cultural networks, and from designing for people with dementia to new discoveries in diabetes research - impact sits at the heart of all our activities. For more information on our impact outside academia please follow these links:

Research News and Events
Case Studies - A selection of our impactful research
Research Matters - showcasing our research successes and news from the sector.
The Wolverhampton Briefing - our new quarterly update on our vital research activity.

Latest from @wlvimpact

Tweets by @wlvimpact

Place: Best Practice

Our work as an Impact Team involves engaging with themes and ideas coming from Policy. An important theme to have emerged over the last few years has been Place. Place has been prominent in the Government’s Plan for Growth and was discussed numerous times in the Levelling Up White Paper. One of the reasons why it has so much resonance at Wolverhampton is that Place is also central to the University’s Strategic Plan and the identity of the University is bound up with its Place geographically, something given additional weight and presence in the Black Country.

Enabling Universities to Engage Better in their Place: An Outline Toolkit

The Team has developed a Best Practice Toolkit and blog, which is being released through the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN). The Toolkit is the result of a survey of HEIs, which has provided best practice on how to engage with Place, and which has been condensed in the Toolkit. A link to the blog on the UPEN Website will appear here once it are finalised. For more information in the meantime, please contact the Impact Team directly.

Seminar Series on Place

The second main development from the Team was hosted by the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and consisted of three seminars, each dealing with a separate Place-related theme. These were: Place and Partnership; Place and Impact; and Place and Funding. A link to the Seminar Series is below:

https://arma.ac.uk/product/place-matters-an-arma-seminar-series/

The resulting Best Practice from the Seminar Series has been distilled into a Checklist, which is also on the ARMA Website, along with a blog.

You can read more about how the University of Wolverhampton is engaging with the changing character of Place here.

Equality and Diversity

The University of Wolverhampton is committed to issues of Equality and Diversity, and to enabling all staff and students to succeed. Our policy statements on Equality and Diversity can be found here. The University holds both the Athena Swan Bronze award in recognition of its work in developing a gender equality plan, and the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award. The impact of our research in this area has national and international reach - for instance our work on board processes and behaviours have brought new feminist perspectives on corporate governance impacting practices across the sectors.

Useful Links

About research at the University of Wolverhampton
Centre for International Development and Training (CIDT)
Innovation & Opportunity: Our Impact (brochure, PDF)
Research Policy Unit (RPU)
Strategic Plan

Policy Engagement and Impact

The University of Wolverhampton is partnered with the following networks, highlighting how our research can impact on policy:

The Universities Policy Engagement Network, UPEN, is a community of UK universities committed to increasing the impact of research on policy.
The UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) is a community of institutions aligned to their commitment to sustainability and the climate change agenda.
The Midlands Engine pan-regional partnership, working to accelerate growth and prosperity for every part of the Midlands.
The West Midlands Regional Economic Development Institute (WMREDI), whose collaborative partnerships with regional stakeholders involved in planning and dellivering growth policies for the region.
The Midlands Impact Group, comprising impact teams from regional Universities