Aiming to identify potential impact cluster(s) across departments within the Social Sciences Faculty, the 1st RAE Impact Case Preparation Meeting was held successfully on 18th January 2023, with 53 faculty members participating in the event.
Prof. Daniel Lai, Dean of Social Sciences, warmly welcomed all participants to the meeting. He briefly explained the reasons for organising such a meeting. He hoped that colleagues could get a clearer understanding of what research impact is and how to prepare a strong evidence-based impact case study for the next Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The Dean then invited Prof. Roger Scully from the Department of Government and International Studies and Prof. Sandy Li from the Department of Education Studies to share their knowledge and experience in the subsequent session. As a British political scientist and academic with wealthy international experience, Prof. Scully compared research impact assessments in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. He generously shared his experiences in creating and sustaining research impact on society. For a fast yet comprehensive digestion of impact areas, Prof. Li then portrayed the interconnection of various disciplines using graphs and pictures, with sorted subfields and respective examples and approaches.
After the insightful sharing, faculty members were divided into 4 small groups. In each group discussion session, two department representatives presented their potential cases for a more concrete idea with real-life examples. Group members discussed some major areas, such as the types of underpinning research and the directions to demonstrate impact to laypersons. Four group representatives brought back their salient points of discussion in the report-back session, including the challenges and dilemmas in choosing the suitable impact case for RAE.
Prof. Lai’s conclusive message highlighted that weighing suitable directions and development of impact case can take time. He further expressed his appreciation towards members’ interdisciplinary collaboration. Prof. Lai also reminded individual researchers to map out the pathway to impact for research projects, which can be crucial to grants bidding.
In the hope of strengthening members’ bonding, the meeting ended with Prof. Lai’s gratitude towards members and his welcome towards new staffs, Dr. LI Yiran (GIS), Dr. LEE Siu Yau (GIS), Dr. Gregory FAYARD (SOC), Prof. Arthur SAKAMOTO (SOC), Dr. Ada FUNG (SPEH), and Dr. Bjorn TAM (SPEH).
