Stage 2: Learn Impact Thinking

As a first step, it is important to study the documents underlying the call you selected. Next to the call text and the instructions, these can be policy documents, mission papers or research agendas. For Horizon Europe, this includes e.g. the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan and, if applicable, any documents on related partnerships as defined in the topics. For NWO NWA it includes, for example, the National Research Agenda. Be aware that these documents are not always included in the call text, so you might have to search for them. You can contact the grants office if you need help localizing these documents. Knowing what is behind the goals and questions listed in the call text helps you define the specific impact you should make. A clear understanding of the funder’s goals puts you in the best position to create the aspired impact.  

The policy documents might vary in concreteness and depending on the level of specificity; you can further specify the required goals and determine the domains of change you want to target.  For example, if a funder wants ageing people to be healthier, interventions could be made in several areas: cancer treatment or prevention, mobility, healthy diets, etc. Broadly specified impacts allow you to decide who to target and how, and which stakeholders to include. Impacts will generally be much bigger than what can be achieved with a single project, so it is essential to think about where and what you can contribute to a larger goal. Outcomes, on the other hand, are usually more specific and at a level that could be achieved with one project. If outcomes are specified by the funding agency, try to address them fully with your project.

Action: Start by summarizing the key elements of the expected impact. For this, not only consult the call text but also hunt down the underlying (policy) documents linked to the call text. You can find these often referred to in the call itself, but also have a look at the Grants Office Support Hub in Teams and on the Funding and Tenders portal from the EU, for materials that help you link policy or mission documents to a specific call. 

Societal, technological or economic impact is usually not achieved by one person in a lab. Rather, it requires the combined effort of various parties or stakeholders. Stakeholders are all parties interested in the problem, or the solution. They can range from those relevant to scientific advancements to those that implement or benefit from the solution and include parties in between that help transfer your research findings to society. To be impactful, these stakeholders should be involved throughout your process, starting as early as defining the problem and its potential causes and solutions. Therefore, start by defining as many stakeholders and as many different types of stakeholders as possible. Stakeholders may come from universities, universities of applied science, technology transfer offices, industry, companies and SMEs, NGOs, patients or consumers, citizens, government and many more. Which ones are relevant for your project depends on your impact direction.

Action: Make a list of the core stakeholders. In this first overview, the list doesn’t have to be complete yet, but make sure you define stakeholders from all different levels and as broadly as possible.

Once you know what "bigger" impact the funder wants to achieve (why are they spending their money?) it is essential to understand why they want this impact. What is exactly the problem they want to solve? Why does the problem exist? What are the underlying causes? Often, you will be familiar with part of the problem or its underlying causes, but often the full problem is not your expertise. Therefore, you might want to study the background of the problem and its causes, read general articles and scientific papers, and policy documents.

Furthermore, talking to actual stakeholders is extremely important at this stage. How do they see the problem? Where do they think the main causes are? What would they like to see as solutions? Stakeholders include government employees, industries or businesses, citizens, patients, etc. You might not yet know them, but you can simply approach them with a polite email: people often like to talk about their problems, so many stakeholders will be open to it. When you speak to stakeholders, you should focus on listening to their stories and refrain from presenting your solutions. At this stage, you want to learn from them. This can be hard because your mind is probably boiling with scientific ideas. Yet first, by listening to the problem, you will learn much more.

Understanding the problem is a large part of the work on a proposal, and it can take substantial time. However, if you know what causes a problem, you know where to act to solve it. And if you know where to act, you can decide whether your work will be able to provide (part of) the solution. At this stage, you might also discover that the underlying causes are different than you originally expected and that your work cannot be a (partial) solution. Although this might be a disappointment after all the work you put in, remember that it is better to discover this now, and not after you have written your proposal. Plus, you might have gained new ideas for future proposals or increased your network with stakeholders.

Action: study the problem in detail, using literature and conversations with actual stakeholders. When talking to stakeholders, ensure you listen to them and refrain from presenting your solutions. Do not stop investigating the problem before you have a complete picture of the problem and its underlying causes and a summary describing it.

The next step in creating an impactful project is to write down ideas in a 1-pager document. To take the step from discussions and ideas in your head to a clear, written format requires that you, as the main/co-applicant, sharpen your thoughts and plans and thus move forward to a concrete proposal. 

The 1-pager for an impactful project needs to contain the following items: 

1. Problem definition 
2. Main causes 
3. Main scientific questions/objectives (and your potential contribution) related to (one or more) causes  
4. Define the stakeholders and their contributions toward the solution 
5. Deduce the requested impact/change wanted from the call text/underlying documentation.  

The 1-pager can help initiate the conversation with potential partners, as you can use the 1-pager to show the direction of the proposal idea and to depict boundaries for the project. Furthermore, it can act as guidance and compass for your consortium to ensure your partners and you are moving in the same direction. For example, it can help you to reflect quickly on whether suggestions contribute to the overarching goal of the call. A 1-pager should be a living document; it changes with valuable insights from stakeholders and will be updated in steps 5 and 6. Final agreement and alignment of the stakeholders on the content of the 1-pager are necessary before proceeding with any proposal writing steps. 

Check requirements 

To build your consortium, first, check the general rules regarding consortia within the call text of the project(s) of interest. These rules can differ substantially between EU and NL applications and between different instruments from the EU and NL. For instance, you might need partners from a specific number of EU member states, or experts from specific disciplines, having a company or SME on board might be required, or certain partners or countries might be explicitly excluded. For EU topics, criteria are defined in the Work Programme and on the web page of the call. For NWO applications, section 3 ‘guidelines for applicants’ of the call text describes the minimal requirements. 

However, once you have satisfied the minimal requirements, you usually do not yet have the optimal consortium. To achieve impact, you need many different partners in your consortium, representing the different stakeholders. 

Tip: Often the minimal requirements suggest the direction in which the funder seeks a solution. For instance, if it is indicated that the social domain needs to be part of the consortium, they are not looking for a purely technical solution but something that includes a social component. 

Update & sorting the list of stakeholders for impact 

Next, you want to update the list of stakeholders you started to create in step 2. Your discussions with stakeholders might have helped you identify more parties that should be involved. If you didn’t do so yet, move from generic stakeholders (e.g. municipalities) to specific stakeholders (e.g. the municipalities of Enschede, Leuven, Aarhus, etc). Furthermore, you might have to broaden your scope based on the requirements from the call and add stakeholders required by the funder. Group stakeholders that fall in the same categories together.  

To maximize your achieved impact, you must put your stakeholders in the right position of influence within your proposal. Specific stakeholders will be closer to your project and need to be a key partners in the consortium, whereas others might not be needed during the project itself, but are highly relevant for the follow-up of your project or the actual use of the results.  

Grouping them can be done best by dividing them into three categories: 

• Sphere of Control: The sphere of control consists of those stakeholders that are directly needed to create the envisioned output of your project. They could do research, provide data, development of the project, testers, etc. The Sphere of control could also contain the first users of your output if they are relevant for (and involved in) creating outputs with more substantial outcomes (and impact). For example, end-users or patients who provide feedback throughout the project. Stakeholders in the Sphere of Control certainly need to be part of your consortium. 
• Sphere of Influence: The Sphere of Influence consists of stakeholders required to create outcomes but who are not involved in creating output. These are typically stakeholders a bit further away from your project. For example, those who will be using your results, researchers in different fields, factories that could produce or sell the product, and patients or end-users who are not involved during the project itself. Furthermore, it could contain stakeholders from similar categories chosen for your consortium, but that did not make it. For example, other municipalities, patient organisations from different countries, or similar companies. Some of these stakeholders might be somewhat involved in the project, e.g. as advisory board members. Some will be mostly updated about the final results through dissemination & communication activities. However, for all these stakeholders it is important that you actively inform them about the project and its results. These are stakeholders with an influence that can help move your project from output to outcome! Whether they are considered to be part of your consortium or not depends on the funder and the call. For EU proposals, they are typically not considered part of the consortium, for NL proposals they might. 
• Sphere of Interest: The Sphere of Interest contains all stakeholders involved in your topic but not directly related to creating the first steps of the outcome. It is however relevant to keep this group informed on the potential outcomes and nature of your research. Furthermore, the Sphere of interest contains members of the general audience with an interest in this project and who wish to be informed. 

If a particular stakeholder (or category stakeholder) seems less relevant after your investigations, move them to the Sphere of Influence or the Sphere of interest. They might not be suitable for your consortium, but they are important targets for dissemination or communication activities. 

If you have stakeholders in all three groups, and a consortium consisting of at least those in the sphere of control, it is an indication of the strength of your consortium. Furthermore, the explicit grouping will help you in final proposal writing (impact sections and research sections alike).  

Select your consortium 

After updating and grouping the list, it is time to select the first set to form your first version of the consortium. Select the best-fitting stakeholder from each category that you deem necessary for your consortium and thus are part of the Sphere of Control. Depending on the needs and definition of the consortium, you might also select several from the Sphere of Influence. For EU proposals, the consortium typically doesn’t go beyond the sphere of interest, but for Dutch proposals, it might. The best fit depends on several elements.

First and foremost, the fit with the topic and what the stakeholder can offer in terms of participation in the project. However, secondary considerations include country of origin, type of organisation, etc. This can be a bit of a puzzle, balancing all relevant factors. Once you ask stakeholders for their willingness to participate, some might refuse, meaning you have to reconsider the whole consortium. If you are doubtful about which would be the best match, please contact the Grants Office to make the best potential match between call and consortium.  

Proposals for impactful projects require you to be explicit and concrete on how your work will create impact or change. They expect you to describe the impacts you foresee from your project, the actions you will take and how these create the best possible chance for that impact to occur. As you can imagine, just saying “that perhaps/maybe/there might be a chance your output will lower CO2 reduction” is not enough. You need to describe the change and a plan or chain of actions towards this change. And you need to describe these in a tangible, realistic and clear fashion. Funders typically call this an ‘Impact Pathway’. In this step 6 towards impact thinking, you are to create a first schematic draft of the impact pathway(s). These form the basis of the further detailed representation in the proposal itself (either plan-like, schematic, or narrative format, depending on the requirements in the proposal template).  

To create these plan-like schematics, you can make use of a set of templates or ways of working which help you get very concrete on the necessary actions needed (next to the science) to create impact. There are a couple of key elements to keep in mind before you start: 

• Do not start by formulating your (scientific) output, but rather by formulating the expected impacts. Then trace backwards via preceding, necessary steps towards the knowledge required for that change to happen. As scientists in a university, that is typically where you contribute. 
• Do this together with your core stakeholders. Creating impact in society requires actions in society. Again, as scientists you typically work on creating new knowledge, so stakeholders closer to society are needed for the actions leading to outcomes. Next to your fundamental/applied science perspective, you need stakeholders that have a closer view of society and societal change. 
• Encourage all participants to think also outside their fields of expertise.
• This step requires time and effort – it cannot be done in one hour, also not in one morning. However, if this step is done well, you have a first version for the impact section of your proposal and a blueprint for the rest of the proposal.   

Action:  Make use of template/ways of working when starting this step 6. Set-up a meeting with scientific and societal/industrial stakeholders and create a first Impact Pathway. Such a meeting is better done in person than online, especially if you have little experience with impact pathways.  

For the EU templates, you can use template [LINK] coming from RVO, which helps you create this backtracking exercise. NWO suggests you use the Theory of Change – which could also be used as a basis for EU proposals. A Theory of Change (ToC) describes how and why an intervention (project) is assumed to lead to the desired end result. A schematic overview is given here [Impact Plan Benadering - schematische weergave ToC.jpg (640×360) (nwo.nl)]. NWO also has an impact workshop available online[NWO Impact - Online workshops], which you can follow with your consortium. Furthermore, many online sources explain and guide you on the theory of change or similar approaches. Which exact approach you use is less important than that you take the time to work it out.  

If you have never worked on a proposal in this way, we suggest that you involve someone from the Grants Office in this meeting.   

The end results of this step should be a schematic overview, with a clear impact area, potential outcomes, and related outputs.