Impact Science and Vertigo Ventures Join Hands to Help Research Institutions in the UK Provide More Robust Support for Research Impact

LONDON, Nov. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Impact Science, a division of Cactus Communications that provides end-to-end support for the research impact life cycle, has partnered with Vertigo Ventures (VV), a UK-based company that offers innovative technology solutions for impact measurement, to provide research institutions with services and systematic support for more efficient and productive impact management.

Substantial annual funding to universities in the UK depends on their ability to demonstrate the impact of their research outside academia, and there is a growing impact agenda in other countries. While many institutions have improved how they manage impact activities thanks to their experience of navigating through the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014), impact managers continue to face challenges in improving the strategy and implementation of impact activities. "This year we did a survey to understand the evolution of impact support in UK universities and from our discussions with impact managers, we found that many institutions face challenges because of the lack of manpower, time, and resources and seek professional support to fill these gaps," said Dr Iain Coleman, Research Engagement Manager, Impact Science.

Both VV and Impact Science offer expertise that can address the challenges faced by impact managers. VV specializes in consultancy, training, and technology solutions to identify, capture, and report impact and solve skill and workflow management challenges in organisations. VV-Impact Tracker, their flagship software product, is used by many leading universities to measure impact efficiently. Impact Science, on the other hand, provides tailor-made consultancy support throughout the research project's impact life cycle: creating a pathway to impact, communicating research outcomes, capturing evidence of impact, engaging with beneficiaries, and writing and editing impact case studies. An impact partner works closely with each client to provide end-to-end support.

"The collaboration between VV and Impact Science will produce a rich, multi-layered solution to the impact managers' complex needs," said Laura Tucker, founder and CEO of VV. "In the last ten years since VV was founded in 2009, we have worked closely with leading institutions to build their internal capability for impact reporting, particularly to capture high quality impact data. Today, our customers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate what difference they are making, beyond academia, in order to access funding from government and charitable funders. Impact Science's expertise in impact life cycle management and their extensive knowledge on research subject areas will help us provide our customers with in-depth support."

Dr Coleman says, "Impact support has grown and evolved since the days of REF 2014, when case studies were being written retrospectively on an ad hoc basis. Today, universities and researchers are increasingly embedding impact as an essential part of their research projects and are systematically tracking the evidence of their impact as we move towards REF 2021. VV-Impact Tracker and their other rich offerings will certainly help customers to enhance their organisational intelligence and efficiency for impact and to embed impact in the academic culture in the long term. We are excited to be working with Vertigo Ventures as the first of our strategic partners and are keen to build on it to meet the growing need for research impact support in the UK and beyond."

About Vertigo Ventures

Since 2009, Vertigo Ventures (VV) has been working with leading research organisations globally to help them identify, capture, and report the impact of their work. Currently, VV is working closely with many universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, and Europe to help them best embed impact reporting practices as part of their university and research strategy as well as, prepare for their national research assessment exercises of REF 2021, EIA 2018, and RAE 2020 respectively and report on their contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

VV provides a range of services, such as impact training workshops, consultancy services, and its proprietary software called VV-Impact Tracker. All of them utilise VV's innovative and proprietary impact taxonomy framework, VV-Impact Metrics, developed over the past decade with close industry input. VV's depth of impact expertise enables their clients to put their best foot forward in embedding impact measurement and reporting, and, ultimately, to maximise the reach and significance of their work.

Visit: https://www.vertigoventures.com/

About Impact Science

Founded in 2019, Impact Science provides research institutions tailor-made consultancy and implementation support throughout the research project's impact life cycle. Impact Science is part of Cactus Communications, a global scientific communications company that collaborates with researchers across academic disciplines, universities, publishers, societies, and life science organisations to accelerate research impact. CACTUS's portfolio of products and services meet a wide spectrum of research needs: Editage provides editorial, translation, education, and training solutions for researchers; Cactus Life Sciences offers strategic and tactical scientific content solutions to global life sciences organisations; and PubSURE is the first AI-powered scholarly publishing platform connecting journals and researchers. Powering all CACTUS businesses with latest technologies is its innovation and R&D cell Cactus Labs. CACTUS also incubates seed and early-stage start-ups that share its mission to solve global problems with science and technology solutions.

CACTUS is an international enterprise with offices in London, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Princeton, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Singapore; a global workforce of over 3,000 experts; and customers from over 173 countries. CACTUS has been consistently ranked as a Great Place to Work, with its best annual ranking of #1 in 2017 (Great Places to Work survey: http://bit.ly/2oaAUot).

Visit: https://www.impact.science/ 

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