Abstract

ENLIGHT is one of the 50 European University Alliances supported by the European Commission, composed of 10 public research-intensive universities committed to transform themselves and the Higher Education and Research landscape, as well as to become key actors enabling equitable quality of life and sustainability. Explicit in its mission statement is the intention of ENLIGHT to become an impact-oriented and a transformative alliance.

In this context, ENLIGHT has launched a series of initiatives aimed at exploring the frontiers of common impact-driven research agendas. More concretely, it is (1) continuously collecting and analysing the opportunities and barriers to implement impact-driven research agendas and (2) developing actions to promote a culture of research impact within and beyond ENLIGHT universities.

For collecting and analysing the opportunities and barriers to impact-driven research agendas (1), ENLIGHT has first conducted an impact landscaping exercise. This was the basis of the ENLIGHT Impact Survey, which was targeted at the senior management teams (institutional survey) and at the researchers and research support staff communities (Researchers/ RSO survey) of the 9 initial involved partner universities. 518 responses (from different researcher level and discipline focus) were received to the Researchers/RSO survey and 9 responses to the institutional survey.
In order to ensure a more systematic approach and give the possibility to non-ENLIGHT communities to contribute at any time to this exercise, ENLIGHT has also developed an online Toolkit for the Self-Assessment of Universities Research Impact Awareness (available at https://impact.enlight-eu.org/self-assessment).
Coupled with the conclusions of the First ENLIGHT Impact Conference, the organisation of several workshops, interviews to key players and different working meetings in the context of the FOREU2 impact thematic group, the ENLIGHT Impact Team identified as main barriers and challenges for impact-driven research agendas:
- low and different impact literacy levels;
- lack of structures, capacities and resources;
- low commitment levels: lack of strategy, leadership and recognition/ appreciation;
- different regional, national and institutional contexts.

And, as main opportunities:
- favourable momentum;
- connectivity among university teams;
- co-creation with societal stakeholders;
- available capacities and resources;
- ENLIGHT leadership and platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration.

In order to address the identified barriers and capitalising on the identified opportunities, ENLIGHT is developing a series of initiatives to foster a culture of research impact within and beyond the Alliance (2). For that purpose, it has/is:
- developed the ENLIGHT repository for good practices on research impact (https://impact.enlight-eu.org/);
- launched the Annual ENLIGHT Research Impact Awards and nominates ENLIGHT Impact Ambassadors to recognise and give visibility to research endeavours at ENLIGHT universities that are exemplar in planning for and achieving impact;
- launching an impact training programme to improve impact literacy and readiness of ENLIGHT research communities;
- organising ENLIGHT Impact Conferences and promoting a culture of impact-direct management through the FOREU2 impact thematic group.