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Collecting data on social impact and using it in decision-making process in organisation in order to maximise the social value created for people unfortunately is not yet the common practice among social impact actors in Turkey. While the importance of allocating the resources in the most impactful way grows due to the pressing need to tackle increasing social inequalities, the social impact management practices of organisations aiming to contribute to the solution and create positive social impact lag behind. The chapter presents the current approaches and practices on social impact measurement and management of social impact actors in Turkey based on experience of Koç University Social Impact Forum.

Impact has generated much discussion in higher education in recent years, and it is not abating. This chapter lays the groundwork to build an understanding of what impact is, where it has come from and where it is likely to be going in higher education. The various roles of universities and academics and the value of knowledge generation and dissemination to communities outside of academia are explored. Understanding impact and how it is enacted, monitored, evaluated and reported is essential to position impact within one's academic practice. While various definitions of impact have been adopted in different contexts, the focus is on leveraging those definitions as an academic. The language of impact is important as it determines how some disciplines are privileged and others potentially are disadvantaged. The chapter encourages academics in the latter category of disciplines to be active in helping shape the conversation around impact in their contexts. The final section discusses where impact may be going within higher education, how to get the most out of the book as a researcher and what each chapter contributes to becoming an impactful researcher. There is no one right way to be an academic; the reader is encouraged to use each chapter to help hone and refine their academic trajectory given their own epistemological beliefs.

Through its effect on the cost of capital, impact investing has the potential to improve the pricing of externalities, reducing the current overproduction and consumption of goods with negative social and environmental impacts and stimulating production and consumption of goods with positive social and environmental impacts. For this potential to be realised, the design of impact investing needs to be better aligned with portfolio management in two respects: (1) it needs to be possible to assess the impact of both asset classes and individual assets and (2) the analysis of the characteristics of assets needs to be separated from the use of mandate-related screens.

The penultimate chapter pulls together pieces of the previous eight chapters to support you in building a career-level impact plan. While the other chapters are a mix of foundational knowledge and practical approaches, this chapter is more philosophical in nature and intended to motivate the reader to bring their impact journey to life. You are encouraged to reflect on your own journey and consider what steps you might take to achieve a career that is consistent with your values and own belief in the importance of the work you do. Contributions from impactful researchers from the University of Auckland help to illustrate how diverse career pathways can be, emphasising there is no one-size-fits-all approach and that career-level impact plans need to consider personal motives and values, intersectionality, as well as disciplinary, institutional, national and international contexts. Plans need to focus on identifying opportunities to hone impact skills, finding people who can be part of your broader impact support team and working out how to strategically balance the teaching, research and service expectations placed on you as an academic. Throughout this chapter, questions prompt you to start building your own understanding of impact in the context of your career or to strategically reflect on your impact journey up to now.

This chapter discusses practical ways that we as researchers can identify and make use of supports that will help further our research impact and advocates for making plans to include impact work from the beginning and taking advantage of opportunities and resources available. The chapter begins by encouraging you to identify your own values related to research impact and to articulate what impact you would like their research to have in the world. This ensures that impact work does not become a tick-box exercise but a meaningful, planned part of their research practice. The chapter then looks at supports – collegial and institutional – from the perspective of information science. The discussion of collegial supports makes the case that colleagues are key sources of practical information, assistance and mentorship; these connections can become information relationships and important parts of your professional network. The discussion of institutional supports makes the case that the landscape of impact can be scattered, so it is important to actively seek out information to help understand the impact environment where you are. Each discussion is accompanied with practical suggestions about how to make the most of opportunities and get the supports needed. The chapter ends with a section aimed at those who are in leadership positions to discuss what can be done to help reduce barriers and provide supports for those who are undertaking research impact projects, including helping to share information and resources about research impact, as well as acting as a mentor.

In this chapter, we share our top tips on writing impact for funding bids and reports. These are drawn from our extensive experience working across a UK university as research impact managers and also successfully developing and writing small to multimillion-pound grant applications for UK charity, UK Government and European funding. We have developed and delivered impact training to researchers at all career stages, written impact case studies for the UK's research assessment and published on the genre. ¹ We also lead the Impact Special Interest Group for the UK's Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and contribute to conferences and specialist training internationally, which has included the Australasia region, Africa and Europe.

Founded in 2015, the Impact Valuation Roundtable (IVR) is an informal group of companies who wish to operationalise the emerging field of Impact Valuation. IVR participants consider Impact Valuation a groundbreaking approach to measure and value the effects of business activities on the health and well-being of people and the planet – in economic, environmental, social and human dimensions.

Impact Valuation can support large and small companies alike. It uses the language of business, supports strategic decision-making by adding fact-based insights into business operations and strengthens the communication and engagement of business with stakeholders. This is showcased in case studies from adidas, Ambuja Cements Limited, BASF, Cementos Argos, Maersk, Natura, Novartis, Syngenta and UPM.

Although there is an increased recognition of the benefits of Impact Valuation, comparability in the calculation and communication of the results of Impact Valuation assessments across companies is one of the key challenges to the credibility and uptake of the concept. The IVR supports and encourages the development of consistent frameworks and standards that strive for maximum commonality across industries, pragmatism in their application, and allow for scaling up.

As importance and interest rises, the IVR continues to welcome other practitioners willing to contribute knowledge and experience to accelerate convergence and mainstreaming of Impact Valuation.

The social value movement emerged in the 1990s from a desire to demonstrate the value of investment in people and society. To demonstrate, evidence or proof is required, thus the focus on measurement is central to the social value movement.

In addition to measurement, understanding and valuing impact upon all stakeholders is a core theme of the social value movement. With measurement, it is more possible to see when an action has led to increased inequality or has negatively impacted the environment. With measurement, one can identify opportunities to improve societal well-being.

In procurement, thinking about impact from the view of all stakeholders will illuminate pathways to achieving maximum positive impact. The journey towards the goal of achieving maximum impact begins at the design stage of the procurement process and will be informed by stakeholder experience overtime.

We should be demanding evidence of maximum positive impact – from our governments and government-funded institutions, and from all corporations and service providers. Building maximum impact capacity among purchasers of services is equal in importance to building measurement capacity at the service delivery level.

The act of procurement offers a tremendous opportunity for positive environmental and social impact. Measurement will inform and guide us on how to maximise that opportunity. This is essential if we are to successfully repair and sustain the planet. Real sustainability requires us to address inequality and to actively improve well-being in order to meet the goal of addressing climate change.