Outputs and outcomes

Researchfish is the online system used by UKRI, CRUK, NIHR, UK Space Agency, Wellcome and other funders to collect information on the outcomes, outputs and impact of research projects they have funded.

Principal Investigators are required to submit information about the outputs, outcomes and impact of their research, which can be entered onto the system at any point by the PI, a delegate or research project team members (where the PI has granted permission). However, only the PI can submit this information and submissions can only be made during each annual submission period.

A factsheet with a link to a full list of funders using the system, dates of the next submission period, details of what you need to do, faculty points of contact and what support is available can be found on the Research and Enterprise Collaboration SharePoint site (internal link only).

For support and guidance contact your faculty Knowledge Exchange and Impact support team in the first instance.

The Research, Enterprise and Scholarship Unit's Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange team can assist you with planning your knowledge exchange strategy and pathways to impact to maximise the impact of your project beyond academia. In addition, the team can provide advice and guidance on tracking, capturing, and evidencing the impact of your project during its lifespan and beyond for post-award reporting and for the purposes of building an impact case study to be submitted to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Public engagement resources

The NCCPE describe public engagement as ‘the many ways organisations seek to involve the public in their work. For universities, this covers a range of types of engagement, for instance 'civic' or 'community' engagement, which are part of the same family’.

• Public engagement – Research England – UKRI
• National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE)

Knowledge Exchange resources

The Open University’s Knowledge Exchange (KE) plan defines KE as ‘a two-way collaboration between academics and various, external partners or publics, with the aim of sharing and co-producing evidence, insights, technologies, intellectual property, experiences, and skills’.

• The Open University’s Knowledge Exchange Plan 2022-27 (internal link only)
• Knowledge exchange framework – UKRI

Impact resources

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) defines impact as ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’.

• REF Impact – UKRI
• Fast Track Impact blog
• LSE Impact blog

The Enterprise team in the Research, Enterprise and Scholarship Unit can assist you with commercialising outputs of your research activity and/or assessing the commercialisation potential of your research activity. Services offered include:

• Intellectual Property (IP) advice for research projects
• Market assessment
• Production of an exploitation plan
• IP protection (patents, trademarks, registered designs and copyright)
• Licencing
• Spin-outs

The starting point for assessing Intellectual Property for commercial opportunities is to complete an Invention Disclosure Form.

Open Research Online (ORO) is The Open University’s open access repository of research publications. The University Code of Practice for Research states that all applicable research publications should be deposited on ORO. ORO disseminates the outcomes from our research, helping to facilitate its impact, influence on policy and practice and ability to change lives for the better. As an Open University researcher, you are automatically pre-registered as a user of the repository and can self-deposit your research papers and other research outputs. Ideally the full-text of the item should be deposited, however, if this is not possible or appropriate then please supply bibliographic details and an abstract.

In keeping with OU principles of openness, it is expected that research data will be open and accessible to other researchers, as soon as appropriate and verifiable. Library Services administer the OU’s institutional data repository, Open Research Data Online.

The Library Research Support team can help you manage your research profile and disseminate your publications and data, enabling you to meet University and funder requirements.

Open Access publishing aims to make research publications ‘free to read’ for everyone. There are three key reasons to make your publications open access:

• increase the readership both beyond and within academia
• increase the dissemination of your publications, and
• comply with funder policies

UKRI has allocated a block grant to the University to contribute towards the cost of Open Access (OA) publishing of UKRI funded journal articles or conference contributions, and this is centrally managed by Library Services.

The Library Research Support Team runs a range of online training sessions throughout the year. You can register for upcoming sessions and access recordings of previous sessions.

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is a system of unique identifiers that is used to identify researchers and their research outputs across platforms.