See and Be Seen - how to develop your academic impact

Aim and intended outcome / educational objectives

Shrinking resource, and growing criticism of research waste (Glasziou) makes optimising the impact of our work a priority for all academics. But developing the vital skills of communication and advocacy are not consistently supported. We need to make effective use of other partners who are well placed to disseminate our work and extend its scope. This workshop will use the partnership between Royal College of GPs and SAPC to examine both how advocacy/impact can be achieved and how participants may use these skills/experiences in working with other settings.

This workshop will be co-led by the SAPC Chair, Chair of Heads of Department group and the President of the RCGP to:

• introduce participants to the role of professional bodies in advocacy
• analyse how academics can use professional bodies to disseminate key messages from their work, and stimulate the use of findings on the frontline
• analyse effective and ineffective approaches to working together
• summarise the broader constructs and skills of advocacy and change management

The overall aim is to help academics think ‘up and out’, and ensure they are familiar with opportunities at national level that can help disseminate their work.

Preconference work - potential attendees will be invited to reflect beforehand on projects they are working on that need/deserve impact. If we know in advance who has chosen this workshop, we can supply a template to structure this step and to be ready to share.

Workshop: summary of SAPC-RCGP case studies and one worked example of a ‘research to routine practice’ pathway. Participants will be then be facilitated to identify principles used to achieve successful outcomes (e.g. via Mentimeter wordcloud, or just hold up paper !!)

Participants will then move into virtual groups to consider their own impact projects,using principles identified to work on specific questions, such as – how can I get my work out into the NHS or other system? Where can I showcase it? Where else do I need to get involved to do this? Who can I use to help with this? How can I track it?

The facilitators will have prepared summaries of options, as well as taking feedback and questions.

Content

Introduction to workshop and participants
Carl May NPT Model of change management
Core skills of effective advocates – how to get heard positively
Examples of effective national working –  after group has generated ideas (e.g. RCGP, WISE-GP, NICE, AoMRC, curriculum change …)
Summary of key findings and take home messages

Intended audience

All welcome. We will use RCGP-SAPC as example, but theory and examples can be ‘translated’ to other settings.