I noticed some notes by Jean Burgess on research ‘outputs and outcomes’ which got me thinking about the way my own project-based research is tending towards outcomes - projects that have a direct relation with organisations outside the university. I cobbled together some of Jean’s post titled outputs!

Especially in the lead-up to the now defunct Research Quality Framework, one of the things I had drummed into me was the difference between research outputs and research outcomes. Outputs, I have learned, are (merely) the things you make out of your research–products, publications, patents and processes…Outcomes, apparently, only occur when the outputs get taken up and used for something in the ‘real world’–this is what the RQF framed as research ‘impact’.

Links:
Productivity Agenda 2020 summit
The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Initiative