ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award

In March 2023, Coventry University was awarded a £1.25 million Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to fund a five-year programme of impact activities starting in April 2023.

This marks the first IAA award Coventry University has ever received, underscoring our strategic commitment to research, our successful REF2021 submission, and the research being delivered in our research centres.

The IAA awards empower research organisations to collaborate with partners across various sectors to address societal challenges using social science solutions. They enable institutions to strategically tailor their efforts to create meaningful change and impact. Learn more about the ESRC.

Economic and Social Research Council logos

Aims of the Award

People Development: Develop our researchers as leaders in knowledge exchange and impact locally, nationally and internationally in our priority areas.
Collaborations, Relationships and Partnerships: Identify, develop, engage and sustain the most appropriate relationships, collaborations, and partnerships that maximise the potential of our knowledge exchange and impact.
Developing, Supporting and Enhancing Impact: Develop and support knowledge sharing across centres and the wider University, encouraging transdisciplinary approaches to impact and the sharing of best practice.
Evaluating and Evidencing Impact: Build a culture in which knowledge exchange and impact is monitored, assessed and improved and externally communicated and promoted.
Strategic Initiatives: Implement a range of underpinning mechanisms that will allow for more effective and efficient impact activity across Coventry University.

Year 1 Project Highlights

Discover some of our ESRC Impact Acceleration Account awarded projects.

Remote 4All

Dr Christine Grant

Coventry’s ESRC IAA enabled the acceleration of impact from Christine’s research project: Disability, neurodiversity, and remote e-working: Promoting the creation of an inclusive workplace: Remote 4 All. Christine ran a webinar for the 2023 Festival of Social Sciences involving local SME stakeholders, which was co-delivered with the charity ‘neurobox’. Capitalising on the event’s success, short videos were produced outlining key findings and recommendations for employers and employees, resulting in considerable engagement across LinkedIn and other social media.

Christine also won Partnership Development Award funding to co-develop a Line-Manager Toolkit working with stakeholders including Vodafone, NHS Employers, UKAEA, neurobox, Costain and others. In May 2024, she presented written and oral evidence, recommending use of the toolkit, to the UK Work and Pensions Select Committee on Disability and Employability.

Christine Grants and two fellow researchers

Migration and Inequality in the Global South - Geneva Policy Symposium

Professor Heaven Crawley and Dr Katharine Jones

The Migration for Development and Equality (MIDEQ) project aims to ensure that south-south migration reduces inequalities and contributes to development in six migration ‘corridors’. Katharine utilised IAA Follow-On Funding to disseminate MIDEQ's findings and policy recommendations to UN audiences at a symposium in Geneva, while also facilitating network-building between MIDEQ Global South scholars and international stakeholders.

This activity introduced new UN audiences, such as UN Women, to MIDEQ's work on gender, and has enabled the development of follow-up activities including a round table with UN Human Rights representatives, a second symposium to introduce new stakeholders to the network and a website with a stakeholder-facing research repository.

Read Katharine’s blog post about the symposium.

Researchers from the MIDEQ project during a panel discussion

The Impact of South-North Critical Internationalisation of the Curriculum through COIL-VE: Female Voices in the Third Space and iKUDU

Professor Marina Orsini-Jones and Professor Katherine Wimpenny

Professor Orsini-Jones and Professor Wimpenny deployed IAA Rapid Response Funding to organise an international conference - and two follow-up workshops – to promote the results of research into Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) – Virtual Exchange with higher education stakeholders.

Underpinning research for this activity is part of a global south-north project which focuses on female voices and a contextualised South African concept of Internationalisation of the Curriculum. IAA funds enabled 70 attendees from 17 countries to attend the three-day event between 18-21 March 2024, with many positive outcomes, including: testing of COIL toolkits, embedding COIL-VE into curricula, knowledge-sharing on research-informed COIL-VE South-North case studies and a rich array of subsequent collaborative endeavours including joint bids and publications, seminar participations and visiting professorships.

Read the blog post about these IAA-funded activities.

A group of researchers involved in the COIL project

ESRC Festival of Social Science

Taking place from 19 October - 9 November 2024, the Festival of Social Science is an annual celebration to promote awareness of UK social science research to new audiences.

two people collaborating with a laptop on the desk

Our £1.25 million ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award

Read more about our £1.25 million Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) to deliver a five-year programme of impact activity.