Water Research Impact and Uptake Workshop wrap up IWMI/WRC uptake workshop

1. Water Research Impact and
Uptake Workshop: WRAP UP
12 – 13 March 2014
Lombardy Hotel, Pretoria

2. Day 1
• Uptake and impact: For whom? For what?
• Relevance and Coercion
• Who we engage with? The ecosystem of players.
• Concept of the scale of change – local, medium, national
• Time scale – research-project time-scale, lifetime of knowledge
collection, policy timescale.
• Capacity building
• United in monitoring and evaluation challenges
• Uptake is less about products and more about processes
• Research as a catalyst (for debate, dialogue, learning) should be
considered as impact
• Distributed responsibility for impact and uptake across partners
• Need to attach a budget/reporting requirements/human
resources for it to be adequately addressed in research projects

3. Day 2
• Scientometrics as a science to produce statistics for indicators
• Value and importance of indicators? Because they indicate (what would constitute
a good, holistic, effective indicator/s?). Indicators should be well documented in
terms of how they are made, must be transparent.
• Example: government-driven RDE strategy, what indicators/measures do we need
to evaluate the science-policy-implementation interface and the support process
mechanisms needed.
• The ‘network’ as an uptake project for knowledge and information sharing
• On-line tools, platforms work better in particular contexts than others.
• Risks in the uptake process
• What makes a successful ‘glue’ organization:
– Has to be based on specific challenges, and should be focused
– Should be grounded in some practice
• Accountability – who is accountable for uptake?
• Funding for impact:
– Integration of funding for uptake activities within research projects

4. Highlights
• Rich accounts of multiple perspectives: research
institute, funding agency, government, university that
does research on impact, networks, policy
organisations, development organisations. Each view
impact differently, define it differently, will contribute
in different ways.
• Need to reconcile overall high-level mission and
institutional contribution (KPIs) to achieving that.
• Boundary to particular institutions’ uptake efforts
(need to draw the line)
• Need to further raise awareness of uptake and impact
within institutions