Cornerstones of Impact Management

How to Plan, Implement, Assess and Understand Factors for Success

Edited by: Anne-Maree Dowd, Thomas Keenan, Kathryn Graham

The definitive resource for understanding and optimising the impact of your ecosystem, organisation, program or team.

Cornerstones of Impact Management is a comprehensive and practical guide to all aspects of impact management. It provides insights and expertise from leading practitioners from around the world, who have decades of experience in starting impact management processes from scratch, shifting cultures, developing systems and processes, and establishing leading-edge practices. It explores planning, implementing, scaling and assessing impact interventions, particularly within research and innovation, and policy, contexts. + Full description

Whether you're a seasoned impact practitioner or just starting your journey, Cornerstones of Impact Management is the definitive resource for understanding and optimising the impact contribution of your project, team, organisation or broader system of operation. It provides invaluable insights for researchers and research managers, policy makers, evaluators, knowledge mobilisers and quality improvement practitioners.

- Short description

Details

Paperback | March 2025 | $ 99.99
ISBN: 9781486317455 | 340 pages | 245 x 170 mm
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Illustrations

Features

A comprehensive guide to impact management, grounded in the perspectives of impact practitioners from around the world.
Accessible for beginners in the field while still providing useful insights for more experienced professionals.
Covers the four 'cornerstones' of impact management: setting the context for impact; impact planning; implementing, scaling and assessing; and reflections on future directions.
Shares useful tips, examples and additional resources drawn from the contributors' experiences as impact professionals.
Includes a Foreword by Jonathan Grant, impact guru and co-founder of the International School of Research Impact Assessment.

Foreword
Acknowledgement of contributors
Preface
Introduction: The foundations of impact

Cornerstone 1: Establish the context for impact
Chapter 1: Impact by design
Chapter 2: Inspiring and fostering a positive impact culture
Chapter 3: Managing your culture shift
Chapter 4: Mitigating risks to impact

Cornerstone 2: Plan for impact
Chapter 5: Integrated impact planning approaches and processes
Chapter 6: Communication and engagement at the planning stage
Chapter 7: Risks at the planning stage

Cornerstone 3: Implement, scale and assess impact
Chapter 8: Monitoring progress and risk
Chapter 9: Why and when to undertake impact evaluation
Chapter 10: Impact evaluation principles and approaches
Chapter 11: The role of economics in assessing impact
Chapter 12: Assessing the value of impacts
Chapter 13: Quality assurance for impact assessments
Chapter 14: The art of making impact visible

Cornerstone 4: Future setting for impact
Chapter 15: Forecasting impact: Potential value from innovation
Chapter 16: What’s on the horizon for the impact field

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Authors

Anne-Maree Dowd PhD is the Executive Manager of Performance and Evaluation at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. She has led the impact agenda within CSIRO since 2014 and has been involved at the international level on research impact.

Thomas Keenan PhD is the Director of Tractuum, an impact management consultancy based in Queensland, Australia. He led the planning and evaluation activities of the CSIRO Impact Team from 2016 to 2019, and continues to support the advancement of the CSIRO approach to impact management as a consultant.

Kathryn Graham PhD, FCAHS is a Professor of Research Impact Assessment at the University of Calgary, Canada, and was previously at Alberta Innovates. Her name is synonymous with advancing both the science and practice of impact. She has 30 years of experience in advising impact driven organisations on how to strategically design, measure, scale and maximise their impact performance.

Cornerstones of Impact Management includes contributions from Paula Adam, Gert Balling, Jasper Buys, Karen Cosgrove, Anne-Maree Dowd, Peter Duffy, Kathryn Graham, Reesa John, Adam Kamenetzky, Thomas Keenan, Alan O’Connor, Pavel Ovseiko, Alex Pollitt, Mark Taylor and Amanda Walsh.