Beyond the frame: hard-to-assess research–impact nexuses in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

This chapter signposts important areas of impact that are generative and valued within SSH academic communities but may be difficult to assess. The examples of hard-to-assess nexuses are affected by the challenge of timeframes, contributory claims, and the kind of material evidence of benefit that are often associated with impact narratives that were ‘optimised’ for assessment purposes - such as those of the United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). The examples in this chapter share several features: a difficult demarcation between research itself and its impacts; a potential conflict between the aims and values underpinning these modes of research and mainstream or top-down understandings of reach and significance; and - in many cases - an increased likelihood for these types of research-impact nexuses to be associated with impact narratives in the social sciences, arts, and humanities, rather than across the full gamut of fields of research. I describe these hard-to-assess domains as ‘research-impact nexuses’, which inhabit a synergetic, relational, and dynamic space that belies institutional frames and technical definitions.