In a survey of over 1,500 scientists, more than 70 percent of them reported having been unable to reproduce other scientists’ findings at least once. Roughly half of the surveyed scientists ran into problems trying to reproduce their own results. No wonder people are talking about a “reproducibility crisis” in scientific research...

... For researchers, this matters more than one thinks because funders are increasingly looking for a real return on their research dollars, euros and pounds. For example, the Ford Foundation, the second largest in the US, expects grantees to “achieve the greatest possible impact”; EU Horizon 2020 Proof of Concept grant applicants must outline the economic and/or societal impact expected from the project; and the UK’s REF, in assessing applications, gives a 25 percent weighting to the ‘reach and significance’ of impact. But what is impact and how can you generate it?

Kristel Alla, Wayne Hall, Harvey Whiteford, Brian Head and Carla Meurk find that academic literature discusses research impact but often without properly defining it. The authors highlight four core elements that comprise most research impact definitions and propose a new conceptualization of research impact relevant to health policy.