January 29, 2019

How is the Research Outcome Data Collected using the Researchfish Platform used by my Funder?

One of the questions that researchers often ask us at Researchfish is Why?…….Why are we being asked to spend our time filling in Researchfish? Why does our funder want this information from us? This then of course leads onto the next question that is…….What on earth do funders use the data for?

We have always had example impact reports produced by funders using Researchfish data on the ‘Why Report?’ page.

Funders also provide information on what they specifically do with the information in the communications with their researchers. However, through feedback from researchers it is clear that we need to do more to communicate how the information is used and therefore how valuable this outcome data is to funders.

We have therefore been working with the Researchfish Communications subgroup that has representation from both funders and research organisations, to produce the ‘How the information submitted via Researchfish is used by your funder(s)’ document that outlines the 3 main strategic areas that funders use the information for:

  1. Communicate and demonstrate the benefits/progress of research funding.
  2. Strategy/policy development.
  3. Studies/analysis to better understand research and how it leads to impact.

There is more explanation and links to examples for each in the document. It then goes on to cover some of the ways that this might be done, such as metrics, short narratives, case studies and blogs, again with some use cases and examples of each. This document is linked into the platform on the award details page for every award, and is also available on the Documentation area (requires log-in).

We hope that this is valuable to all users, and are keen for it to evolve and improve so if you do have any feedback please let us know via support@researchfish.com.