Feedback for Impact and Knowledge Exchange Fellowship
By Dr Beate Ehrhardt, Mathematical Innovation Research Fellow, IMI. Cohort 2026.
The Impact and Knowledge Exchange Fellowship has been incredibly valuable for me. Perhaps most importantly, it broadened my understanding of what impact can look like. It encouraged me to think beyond the routes I would naturally have considered and made me look at entirely different ways of creating impact from my research.
The introduction to Theory of Change was particularly powerful. It gave me a practical framework to start with the impact I would like to achieve in ten years' time and work backwards to identify the concrete steps I can take today. Turning a long-term vision into a detailed, actionable plan was genuinely empowering. As a direct result, I reached out to experts and colleagues far outside my usual network, creating conversations and opportunities that simply would not have happened otherwise.
The Fellowship also introduced me to parts of the University and support structures that I was previously unaware of. While I have not yet had the opportunity to make full use of all of these connections, I suspect this may ultimately prove to be one of the most valuable outcomes of the fellowship, second only to the Theory of Change approach itself.
Finally, I met a cohort of like-minded people who are working in very different research areas but share a genuine commitment to creating impact. Given that impact-focused researchers are still relatively rare across the University, it was reassuring to find a community of people facing similar opportunities and challenges. I am very grateful for that.
Overall, the Fellowship has changed how I think about impact, given me practical tools to pursue it more strategically, and connected me with both people and resources that will continue to influence my work long after the programme has finished.
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