Pathways vision
How we understand and support research impact at Concordia.
Introduction
Researchers are working in a rapidly changing academic environment. Expectations around the role of research in society are evolving, and new forms of engagement are emerging across disciplines and sectors.
These changes extend beyond demonstrating outcomes. They reflect broader shifts in how research is valued, supported, and connected to society, including:
- A growing emphasis on research impact, shaped by urgent societal challenges and renewed attention to public trust in research
- Changing expectations from funders and governments around the public value of research
- A shift toward more inclusive, responsible, and meaningful approaches to research assessment
In this context, researchers are increasingly asked to think about impact as part of an ongoing process that unfolds across the life of a research project. For research to lead to meaningful impact, certain practices, relationships, and forms of support need to be in place over time.
Pathways to Impact traces its roots to a 2021 proposal from Concordia’s Research Sustainability Stream (Sustainability Action Plan), which initially envisioned an incubator for sustainability research. Over time, through three comprehensive university-wide consultations, this idea evolved into a united commitment to amplify Concordia’s impact.
These pivotal consultations included:
- The Voluntary University Review, reinforced by a collaborative “17-rooms” exercise aligned with Concordia’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
- Future Concordia, whose recommendations called for “a radical restructuring of the research ecosystem”, urging a fundamental rethink of research, its support structures and a more inclusive approach to people, projects and methods; and
- the Strategic Research Plan 2023-2028 which formalizes the university’s commitment to advancing impact and engagement (Objective 4), as reflected in the renamed Office of the Vice-President, Research, Innovation, and Impact (OVPRII) and in the creation of the Concordia University Research Impact Award (RIA) program.
Defining research impact
At Concordia, we define research impact as the change that research activities contribute to society and beyond. We understand this change as an ongoing process of engagement that can lead to academic, social, cultural, economic, environmental, or policy effects. The consequences of research, or impacts, can:
- be positive or negative
- be of different types or natures
- occur at different times and scales
- result from the research process itself, as well as from its results
Framing research impact
We consider the impact areas below as a way of framing the different forms research impact can take. These areas do not capture the full range of how impact is understood or experienced but offer a starting point to help clarify research impact goals and advance them with greater intention, capacity and assessment.
Academic impact
Contributing to knowledge development and creation via publications and knowledge mobilization activities such as establishment of datasets, sharing of open access research outputs, or presentations to conferences.
Cultural impact
May refer to heritage and the arts, or understood in a sociological sense: cultural norms, values, ideas, attitudinal changes.
Economic impact
Driving economic development, generating new products and services, creating a new enterprise or contributing to an existing one.
Environmental impact
Beneficiaries are the natural and built environment with its ecosystem services, together with benefitting societies, individuals or groups.
Health and wellbeing impact
New drugs and treatments, therapies, education and training, public awareness, and access to health care provision.
Policy impact
Informing, influencing and improving decision-making by government and public bodies, NGOs and in the private sector.
Social impact
Informing public debate, stimulating public interest, improving welfare, equality and inclusion, quality of life and opportunities.
Impact definitions were taken from Erasmus Impact Indicators tool, slightly modifying some.
This understanding of impact underpins the need for flexible support that can respond to different research contexts, goals, and moments in the research process.
Concordia’s support for researchers
At Concordia University, we aim to support researchers by expanding and coordinating support for:
- Considering impact earlier in the research process
- Engaging more meaningfully with partners, communities, and stakeholders
- Communicating research beyond academic audiences
- Participating in open science and knowledge mobilization practices
- Exploring how research can inform action, policy, or practice
- Reflecting on how impact is understood, documented, and assessed
- Seeking appropriate institutional support and recognition for this work
Pathways to Impact
Led by the Office of the Vice-President, Research, Innovation and Impact (OVPRII), the Pathways to Impact initiative responds to the changing expectations around research impact. The initiative brings together existing university structures and resources to create a coordinated approach that strengthens the academic, scientific, and societal impact of research. This whole-university approach recognizes that impact is shaped collectively, and that units and sectors across the institution play a role in enabling and amplifying researchers’ impact goals.
At its core, the Pathways to Impact initiative is about enhancing how support is organized around researchers. By connecting researchers with expertise and services from across the university in addition to external resources, this integrated approach aims to ensure researchers have access to both the resources and the relationships that will help them advance their impact work.
Ultimately, we want to ensure:
- Researchers are supported to maximize the diverse impacts of their work
- Institutional units collaborate to offer tools, resources and training that meet the needs of researchers and their societal partners
- Our researchers are well-positioned for success in funding
- Societal stakeholders know and value our research contributions
The 7 pathways
Below are the Pathways to Impact, describing different methods researchers could engage to create impact and what each pathway offers. Within each pathway are a range of activities, including workshops, clinics, consultations, and other forms of engagement, designed to respond to different research impact needs.
This pathway supports researchers who aim to strengthen the reach, transparency, and integrity of their scholarship while navigating evolving expectations around research assessment. It focuses on how research is produced, shared, and recognized within academia.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Share your research openly and responsibly
- Communicate the significance of your work beyond publications
- Strengthen how your research is assessed and recognized
- Increase the reach and long-term value of your research outputs
- Develop narrative CVs that reflect the full scope of your research contributions
- Plan for and manage research data responsibly
This pathway acknowledges research practices grounded in process, experimentation, and alternative forms of expression, with particular relevance to artistic and creative disciplines. It supports impact development through creative and experimental approaches to knowledge-making.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Explore non-traditional and creative research outputs
- Use creative methods to engage audiences and address social issues
- Center experimentation, reflection, and making as part of the research process
- Create, test, and iterate prototypes through feedback from collaborators, communities, or users
- Integrate sustainable and ethical practices into creative work
This pathway supports researchers working collaboratively with communities and non-academic partners. It focuses on building meaningful, reciprocal relationships that shape research questions, methods, and outcomes.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Co-design research with communities and partners
- Build and sustain trust-based partnerships
- Share authority and decision-making throughout the research process
- Work collaboratively on research questions, methods, and outcomes
- Use participatory and citizen science approaches where appropriate
This pathway supports researchers who are interested in exploring new applications, uses, and directions for their research. It focuses on how research can move beyond its original context into new settings, practices, or applications, without requiring a commitment to commercialization or venture creation.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Explore potential applications of your research beyond its original context
- Develop innovation-oriented and translational ways of thinking
- Test and refine ideas before committing to formal partnerships or commercialization
- Reframe problems and opportunities
This pathway supports researchers who are ready to pursue structured routes to impact through entrepreneurship, industry collaboration, and market-based mechanisms. It focuses on industry partnerships, venture creation, and the protection and commercialization of research outputs.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Develop industry or external partnerships connected to your research
- Explore entrepreneurial pathways, including venture creation or spin-offs
- Protect, manage, and make strategic decisions about intellectual property
- License, commercialize, or scale research outputs through market-based routes
- Navigate agreements, partnerships, and commercialization processes
This pathway supports researchers whose work contributes research evidence and expertise to policy and decision-making processes. It focuses on informing public policy, regulation, and institutional decision-making across governments, NGOs, and other organizations at local, national, and international levels.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Work with government, NGO, and other political decision-making and influencing bodies
- Produce research outputs tailored for policy and decision-making contexts
- Develop policy-relevant writing and communication skills
- Create change in educational curricula across all levels informed by new knowledge and policies
- Influence international policy development and practices of international agencies or institutions
This pathway supports researchers who seek to share their work with broader publics and contribute to public understanding. It focuses on communicating research clearly and responsibly beyond academic audiences.
You might engage here if you want to:
- Reach public audiences beyond academic contexts
- Engage with media to share research responsibly and effectively
- Contribute to public scholarship, dialogue, and debate
- Develop skills and strategies for public-facing research communication
Pathways to Impact: an integrated support service
Together, the 7 Pathways form a living support system that will evolve through feedback, learning, and the addition of new services as researcher needs and opportunities emerge. You may engage with one pathway or several, at different moments of a research project depending on the nature of your work, goals, and where you are in your research journey.
Units currently involved in the integrated support service
- 4th Space
- University Communication Services
- Office of Community Engagement and SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation
- Concordia Library
- District 3
- Office of Research
- V1 Studio (external unit)
- More to come...
The future we anticipate
- Researchers are supported to maximize the diverse impacts of their work.
- Multiple pathways to impact are recognized and strengthened.
- The full range of research impact is valued and made visible.
- Institutional units collaborate to offer tools, resources and training that meet the needs of researchers and their societal partners.
- Research impact aligns with broader institutional goals, advancing Concordia’s core commitments and priorities.
- Achieving research impact is made easy, normative and rewarding.
- Societal stakeholders know and value our research contributions.
- Our researchers are well-positioned for success in funding competitions.
- Concordia is a recognized leader in research impact.
Research impact, at an institutional level, is shaped by how intentionally we consider the ways research can benefit society. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to generating societal benefit from academic and scientific knowledge, nor a single ideal institutional model for enabling it. By advocating for the thoughtful engagement of diverse pathways to impact and creating a supportive structure, the Pathways to Impact initiative anticipates that, as a community, we can significantly enhance the potential for all research to generate meaningful societal benefits.