Abstract

The efficiency and effectiveness of public funding for research is today measured by the impact of research activities across scientific, economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. Research funding programs and research assessment agencies increasingly emphasize estimating and quantifying the impacts resulting from the valorization of project outcomes.
But researchers often lack the necessary skills to plan and measure the impact of their research. This has led to a growing need for support services. Research Support Offices (RSO) in universities and public and private research centers provide specialized assistance in drafting project’s impact sections, while Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) offer support in developing results generating economic impact. However, these two functions are often organizationally separated within institutions and this may hinder the creation of synergies to better support researchers.
To face this issue a training course on “Promoting the Impact of Research” was launched in late 2022 in Italy, sponsored by national associations of research and technology transfer managers (the Italian network for knowledge valorization-NETVAL, the university General Directors association-CODAU, the Italianresearch manages network). A second edition took place in 2024 and the third one will be organized starting from January 2025.
The training course aims at providing skills and knowledge about the concept of impact and how to measure the scientific, social, and economic dimensions of research. This will foster the professional growth of staff (Impact Managers) specialized in drafting project impact sections, monitoring, protecting, and valorizing results, in synergy with dissemination and exploitation activities.
The course targets 40 professionals working in RSOs and TTOs in universities, research centers and private institutions. Its content is developed by this abstract’s authors, working in different universities, one as research manager and the other as TT manager. It is organized in 6 modules, once a month, 2 half days, onsite.

Main achievements of the training course are:
- improved competences of intermediaries (RMAs and KT Managers) to support value creation from research-based knowledge
- improved collaboration between RSOs and TTOs
- identification of suitable organizational models and professional profiles to support impact of research.

The training is relevant for knowledge valorization because enhancing collaboration and improving the skills of RMAs and KT Managers means offering a more professional support to researchers and ultimately increasing the chance that research activities will generate an economic and societal impact.
Moreover, the training is innovative as, to the best of our knowledge, no other similar course is currently offered at national level in Europe. Having the training a significant potential for transferability, this presentation will describe its goals, outcomes, lesson learned, feedbacks from the course participants and the impact.