The Impact Initiative

Our mission is to increase the uptake and impact of research from two major research programmes jointly funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID): the Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research and the Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems Research Programme. [read more] 

Photo (cropped): Jessica Lea/DFID/Flickr under licence CC BY 2.0

News and Views

Event: Putting children first: new frontiers in the fight against child poverty

On Friday 18 October, IDS, the DSA/EADI Working Group on Multidimensional Poverty and Poverty Dynamics, Global Coalition to End Child Poverty and the Impact Initiative, with support from the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP/University of Bergen/International Science Council), will bring together leading scholars and policy makers to discuss new frontiers in the fight against child poverty in Africa.

Event: Ending pensioner poverty

Event: UKFIET: the opportunities and challenges of translating evidence into policy and practice

News: How to get your research paper published

Blog: Achieving a truly 'Global Britain': research policy partnerships

Vlog: Inclusive education for children with disabilities

News: Global Disability Summit: progress made?

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The Impact Lab

The Impact Lab seeks to strengthen links and create dialogue by providing an outline of the issues and clear lessons for knowledge practitioners, donors and researchers. Outputs include impact stories, an edited collection of articles, and a series of learning guides. Find out more or see our glossary of terms. Additional resources are available from the Impact Initiative collections in the OpenDocs e-repository.

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Discover how to maximise the impact of your project

Edited collection of articles

The social realities of knowledge for development

Analysis of the critical challenges faced by organisations and individuals involved in evidence-informed development through a diverse set of case studies and think pieces

Impact stories

Investigating Domestic Violence Law in Cambodia

Research on Domestic Violence (DV) law in Cambodia not only contributed to greater understanding of the limitations of the legislation but was used as evidence in a law court.
Shows sandbags piled up underneath trees and along the coastline. There is a boat in the background.

Raising Awareness of Environmental Change in the Maldives

Participatory research with island communities in the Maldives explores how environmental changes affect day-to-day life, and raises awareness of associated issues with decision makers.

Understanding Displacement and Urbanisation in Somali Cities

How research captured the experiences of displaced people in four Somali cities and provided spaces for them to raise their concerns with policymakers.

See more at the Impact Lab

Featured Projects

Urban/Rural

Safe and sustainable cities

This project seeks to incorporate migrant perspectives and sources of innovation into urban planning to build safer and more sustainable cities, addressing environmental sustainability, poverty, and conflict and security.

Children & Young People

Young people in fragile and conflict affected situations

The overall aim of the research is to generate new knowledge about how marginalised youth perceive, navigate, negotiate and respond to uncertainty in impoverished fragile and conflict affected communities in Ethiopia and Nepal.

Security

Development frontiers in crime, livelihoods and urban poverty

This mixed-methods research aims to bring together key development concerns related to sustainable livelihoods, social vulnerability, and poverty to build an alternative account of 'insecurity and crime' in African cities.

Governance

Impact of social pensions on multiple dimensions of poverty

This research seeks to generate robust, urgently needed evidence to address the critical knowledge gaps in order to inform policy debates and thinking on the further development of the Older Persons Cash Transfer Programme in Kenya.

Resources

Research for policy and practice

Water security

All too often in water management, short-term gains for the few are prioritised above long-term benefits for the many. Draws on research exploring the realities facing people for whom water insecurity is a daily threat in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia.

IDS Bulletin

Exploring Research-Policy Partnerships

This IDS Bulletin issue explores how partnerships focused on the production of policy-engaged research seek to achieve societal impact and the challenges involved. Draws on research funded by ESRC-DFID's Strategic Partnership.

Research for policy and practice

Pensioner poverty

This collection of ESRC-DFID funded research shows that in many settings, universal cash transfers and social pension programmes are providing much-needed financial support to older people in Kenya, Lesotho and Malawi.

Collection

Rethinking impact: applying the gender lens

This booklet profiles the research and impact funded by the ESRC-DFID Strategic Partnership which explicitly focuses on gender inequality, but also projects where the gender dynamics emerged during the course of the work.


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