Duncan Green reports back on a discussion with one of London’s leading universities on how to improve the impact of research
I’m doing a couple of days’ work with SOAS around the perennial topic of research for impact. It was organized by Global Development, but had several other departments there. This is also allowing me to work with R4I guru Peter Evans for the first time, which is an added bonus. He’s written up some of his vast experience in a series of Substack posts – here’s one example.
There are so many questions on this topic, even before you get to the nuts and bolts. Why should research be expected to have impact in the first place? Is the impact agenda inherently neoliberal/capitalist/individualist/short termist? How would Karl Marx or Adam Smith have scored under the Research Excellence Framework? What if your research field is Sanskrit texts or ancient Chinese vases?
In our first session, we heard from a bunch of great SOAS researchers on everything from researching slavery and discrimination in Mali (descendants of people taken into slavery within the country are still discriminated against there) to research on informality in Ghana to anti-corruption work in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Some of the lessons that emerged from the conversations:
Your long term body of work matters more than any single piece of research. Researchers and their reputations have more impact than any particular paper. Building that name recognition comes through a combination of stamina, skill and luck.
But even thinking about individual researchers may be the wrong unit of analysis. Impact often happens when a group of like-minded people build an ‘epistemic community’ that supports each other to develop and promulgate the new ideas.
One way to describe this is as a ‘portfolio approach’. Whether in your own work, or your department’s or your community’s, pick out the crown jewels and talk about them, admit that a lot of the other stuff has limited impact, and some things none at all.
Critical Junctures really do matter. The Milton Friedman quote came up again, in all its glory. It really is brilliant:
Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
SOAS’ Anti Corruption Evidence programme (ACE) shows the extraordinary impact of a crisis. Started in 2017, it is headed by a charismatic and original thinker, Mushtaq Khan, who pioneered a lot of the work on political settlements.
For years, ACE and Mushtaq’s work made waves in the academic world, but had limited traction on policy. But in 2024 a popular uprising overthrew the government in Bangladesh, where Khan, who is Bangladeshi, has done much of his research, and suddenly he was in huge demand. Now he is sitting on several committees charged with things like rewriting legislation or clawing back stolen money from dodgy power contracts.
‘How do you do research that is not wanted?’ A great question – fine if you are providing decision makers with the evidence they need to do their jobs better, but what if they either hate your work, or think its irrelevant? Answer: find your allies (back to those epistemic communities) and if possible, a reputable institutional home – a respected university or thinktank. Work hard, build your reputation, and wait for that crisis or shift in the Overton Window of what is acceptable in public debate.

Modesty can be a problem. OK, maybe not in my case, but many researchers find it hard to sing their own praises (back to imposter syndrome). The trick is to find some external validation (reviews etc) and praise singers to do the job for you.
Researching them v researching us: UK funded research is better at tackling challenging problems such as corruption ‘over there’ than ‘here’. I’ve heard this in other conversations of late, e.g. thinking and methods on monitoring and evaluation are more sophisticated in international development than in the UK domestic sector, because the money for both comes from the UK government and (surprise, surprise), the funder is more ambivalent about itself being put under the evaluation microscope.
Hi Duncan – thanks for facilitating such a fascinating conversation. The point that has lingered and ruminated most with me relates to the “UK funded research is better at tackling challenging problems such as corruption ‘over there’ than ‘here’”.
In addition to the point about M&E in international development, I also wonder whether approaches and thinking about how to address governance problems “over there” – where rule of law is potentially weak – may be usefully employed “over here” – where rule of law and democratic norms appear to be weakening rapidly. SOAS ACE has recently published a “how to” guide which tries to make our approach more accessible for others to apply in their own work.
How to guide: https://ace.soas.ac.uk/publication/navigating-the-political-economy-of-corruption-observing-and-understanding-actors-behaviours-to-inform-effective-policy/
We’ll be running a virtual launch event for the guide at 13:00 BST on 15th May 2025 for anyone who might be interested – sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/navigating-the-political-economy-of-corruption-soas-ace-how-to-guide-tickets-1349692900799?aff=oddtdtcreator
dear Duncan,
I’m very sorry to have missed this workshop – I was supposed to attend, but couldn’t, with marking deadlines. great blog blog, very interesting and digestible. I thought the point about epistemic communities particularly significant – and relevant to our students, who learn about them on modules like Environment, Governance and Development and presumably others. But – as you might possibly know – if you asked Peter Haas or Michel Foucault about what an epistemic community was and what to think about them, you’d get quite different answers. Which isn’t to suggest you need to abandon the proposition you are making: it’s hard to see, if we want to get people to listen to ideas, how we could avoid being in, or have our ideas used by, an epistemic community of some sort. But if you’re interested in a couple of references which can set them up as something of a double-edged sword, I’m happy to send them to you. wishing you well, Andy
Thanks Andy, sorry you couldn’t make it – sounds like you could have contributed a lot!
I was talking about research impact with Professor Flora Cornish last week. And how you can see research as a long term relationship that doesn’t have to be bounded by funding timeframes (but often is for practical reasons). I’ve seen research outputs that are offered as ‘conclusions’ of research – summative analyses. But what if the same content becomes the springboard for change. I particularly like Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad’s book ‘Citizens’ as an example of the latter. The book is a personal inquiry into shifting from consumer to citizen (he was originally in advertising/marketing) on the bankruptcy of the Consumer Story and the reality of collective agency. The book ‘launch’ has been ongoing for years spawning all kinds of fascinating initiatives about collective citizenship in the UK and globally. So research can be a Milton Friedman type of treading water until the time is ripe or research outputs can also be wielded proactively as a springboard for the next step of action.
nice nuance Irene, thanks