Evaluation and Impact

Evaluating our work and examining the impact of societal engagement activities at Imperial is an essential part of our remit. We carefully follow the results of our programmes, events and funding distribution and monitor the impact they have. On this page, we detail the ways in which we do this.

Reports and reflections

We evaluate all of our programmes to understand who took part, their experiences, and any outcomes. Through evaluation we can better know whether we are meeting our aims, whether we are engaging those we planned to, and how to improve what we do. We hope that others can also learn from our reflections – please get in touch if you would like to know more or to share your own work with us.

Example Reports

Great Exhibition Road Festival 2024 Evaluation Summary – conducted by Graphic Science

Our evidence base

We are constantly learning about the most effective, inclusive and impactful ways to engage. We draw on academic research, insights and evidence to inform our work, including about science capital, identity and belonging, participatory research, and public attitudes to science.

Would you like to discuss relevant and current engagement research with like-minded colleagues? Join our Societal Engagement Reading Group which takes place every six weeks, open to all staff and doctoral students. 

Data and monitoring

As well as evaluating our programmes, we monitor a wide range of internal and external data to help inform our work, and contextualise and evidence our impact. For example:
 
Our Residents Dashboard provides information about people who live in London. We use this data to benchmark our location-based engagement and identify regions and schools in London that might be underrepresented in STEM.  

We monitor who at Imperial takes part in our Public and Community Engagement activities. Our Participation Log summarises this information and draws in additional information from the staff and student directories. This helps us report on how many staff and students are contributing to societal engagement at Imperial and feeds into institutional level metrics such as the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HEBCI) Survey.

Engagement impact

Societal engagement contributes to Imperial delivering impactful research, teaching and work within wider society. Some of the ways we report on the impact of societal engagement include: the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) narrative; the Research Excellence Framework (REF); HEBCI survey; and towards our Science for Humanity strategy.   

Get in touch  

Are you looking for advice or guidance on how to evaluate your own engagement work? Try our Evaluation Toolkit, or book in for an advice session with a member of the Public Engagement team.

For more information about societal engagement evaluation and impact, contact: Dr Amy Seakins, Head of Engagement (Evaluation and Capacity Building): a.seakins@imperial.ac.uk or societal_engagement@imperial.ac.uk. Or for information about evaluation of schools outreach programmes, contact the Outreach Data and Evaluation Team via outreach@imperial.ac.uk