Our impact evaluation work helps to demonstrate the broader contribution of social science to society and the economy. This forms part of our strategic emphasis on impact assessment along with our other work on evaluation and international benchmarking.

Analyses and future directions

We have produced a series of reports that analyse ESRC's impact evaluation work and discuss further activity to be taken forward.

• Cultivating connections: innovation and consolidation in the ESRC's impact evaluation programme (PDF, 576Kb) is the latest impact evaluation report, analysing recent studies and the common threads running through them.
• Taking stock: a summary of ESRC's work to evaluate the impact of research on policy and practice (PDF, 252Kb) This report covers the history of the ESRC's activity and its work in this area up to February 2009.
• Branching out: new directions in impact evaluation from the ESRC's Evaluation Committee (PDF, 176Kb) covers work undertaken between 2009 and 2011.

Scoping events

The first ESRC sponsored event in this area was an International Symposium (PDF, 280Kb) held in May 2005 which explored recent issues and developments in the theory and practice of impact assessment.

We held a further workshop in March 2007 (PDF, 187Kb) to discuss the development of methods for assessing the impact of social science research.

We then held a workshop in December 2010 (PDF, 143Kb) with the aims of disseminating the latest findings from our Impact Evaluation Programme and to discuss possible new activity to drive the area forward.

Our latest expert seminar in January 2013 (PDF, 198Kb) presented the findings from the ESRC's most recent impact evaluation studies, shared learning with others working in this field, and discussed the priorities and challenges for future work in this area.