Importance of producing impactful research

Abstract

The pressure to achieve impact is related to three main issues. Firstly, the South African water sector faces many challenges that need to be addressed through effective policy development and implementation. Thus, sound evidence, based on researched consideration of issues and solutions, is an important input to policy development and implementation. Secondly, impact is often related to fulfilling a personal desire to ‘make a difference’ with our work. Thirdly, pressure to achieve impact stems from the more pragmatic issue of funding. Funding agencies, organisational leadership and policymakers need scientists to prove that the science we produce makes enough of an impact to merit further funding in future. This emphasis and pressure around achieving impact has led to a policymaking discourse known as evidence-based-policymaking (EBPM), which aims to align science and policy to generate responses that are relevant, real and impactful to the multiple challenges, needs and issues facing society today. This rhetoric has become prominent in many countries, and is evident in many of our government departments in South Africa.