CREST Impact Report 2023

Impact assessments within the social sciences are notoriously difficult, especially so for CREST given its focus on national security and the fact that its end users are limited in what they can share about their use of CREST research, products and activities and the impact on their work. That said, we received valuable input and insights from staff, academics, end users and the Research to Practice Fellows. In conducting the impact assessment, we have taken CREST’s stated mission and objectives as our starting point. CREST differs from the traditional model for government directly commissioned research; the core CREST team and activities provide an ongoing bridge between academics and end users, build a sustainable knowledge base to underpin policy and practice, make academic research available in a digestible format for policy makers and practitioners, provide opportunities for contact between them, and help to build academic capacity – including through HEI funded PhDs – for continued research of this kind.

The impact assessment focuses on the following key themes:

• CREST’s impact on the work of end users, and its ability to enhance their connections with academics.
• CREST’s impact on the work of academics and its contribution to capacity building.
• The CREST organisational model

We adopted a mixed methodology, which included a review of CREST documents, a perceptions audit, case studies and analysis of social media data.

Our impact assessment makes a series of conclusions and recommendations:

We came across considerable evidence of the impact CREST has on the work of policy makers and practitioners (end users).

• CREST has met or exceeded targets related to its impact on the work of end users.
• CREST products and people are well-accessed by end users, with the CREST website and research articles most frequently cited.
• CREST impacts the work of end users by:

1. Providing evidence-based research to improve practice and policy; helping to keep staff up to date with latest research and developments; and offering a test of the assumptions that underpin policy and practice.
2. Building a substantive evidence base that grows and consolidates over time rather than one-off studies.
3. Transforming understanding that has resulted in major shifts in policy and practice.
4. Informing policy strategy development.
5. Commissioning exploratory research that makes connections across complementary areas of research.
6. Offering training, which is identified as an area of excellence and is deemed by a number of the people we interviewed as being ‘best in class’. There were numerous examples where CREST-informed training has had a tangible and meaningful operational impact.

• CREST’s rapid response capability, notably direct tasking and stewardship, were rated positively as they help bridge the gap between the immediate needs of end users and the longer-term timelines for academic research, as well as teasing out the ‘so what’ from research to better inform policy and practice.

CREST enhances and improves connections between end users and academics, but we identified areas for improvement:

• Events were well-received but were curtailed by the pandemic – end users and academics want to see more events from CREST.
• End users and academics appreciate CREST’s role in translating academic research, and there was special mention for CREST’s design and products, but many feel there would be merit in pushing harder on this area of activity.
• • Enhanced connection between academics and end users brings a number of tangible benefits, notably end user access to ‘bottom
• drawer’ knowledge, academic access to new data streams, and
• development of best practice, but as with events there is a desire
• to scale this up.

CREST impacts the work of academics in a number of ways:

• CREST has exceeded all but one of its KPIs relating to academic performance, including in relation to publications, conference presentations, citations, and funding.
• Its research is strongly ranked as being high quality.
• Academics regularly access CREST research and the network.
• Academics report various benefits, including connections with end users, enabling co-production, and providing researchers with access to end users of their research.

There is more that CREST could do to ensure it acts as a force multiplier for academics in terms of policy and practice impact; CREST contributors remain focused on research outcomes more often than impact ones.

CREST continues to contribute to capacity building and developing the next generation of researchers and educators:

• It has produced 22 PhDs and received positive feedback on the value add of completing a PhD under CREST’s umbrella.

• A majority of academics believe CREST enhances their skills and see investment in CREST as a long-term investment in academic capacity capable of translating for end users.
• Some pointed to the impact of CREST’s efforts to diversify the research feeding into national security and the ways it enriches perspectives and, ultimately, increases safety.

The relative success of CREST rests on that which makes it unique; its organisational model, which differs from the traditional model for government directly commissioned research. But its model requires a number of adjustments to enhance its offering:

• Academics and end users rate highly CREST’s ability to communicate effectively across both groups, but academics were more likely than end users to feel positively about this. We suggest further consultation with end users to explore different approaches to enhance communication for end users.
• Research to Practice Fellows are critical to communication, translation and networking, but their time is highly limited, and this restricts CREST’s reach and impact. We suggest funders consider substantially increasing investment in this resource.
• Academics expressed a desire for more feedback from end users about how their research has been used in practice.
• There was universal demand for more events, round tables, conferences and online events.
• There were mixed views about the visibility of the CREST brand.

Given the turnover in roles within government and agencies, brand awareness has to be an ongoing process to ensure the CREST name and brand is known and understood among its client base and target audience.

• CREST’s website is a key access point for academics and end users. CREST should explore further its Google Analytics and adopt acquisition methods to drive more traffic, such as link shorteners, QR codes or branding with social links, and look into an option for website visitors to subscribe to a theme.
• CREST has a reasonable social media presence, but could do more to extend its reach, notably on LinkedIn and by adding social links to its website.
• There was very positive feedback from both academics and end users about the design and format of CREST products, and the use of innovative approaches to communicate for impact, and it is important CREST conducts talent pipeline development to ensure there are no single points of failure in this critical area of its work.
• It is important CREST’s thematic focus remains up-to-date with demand from end users, so we recommend CREST and funders conduct a thematic refresh.

Overall, we conclude that CREST offers very good value for money. For a relatively modest budget, it is considered by end users and academics to be a valuable resource, scoring consistently highly among our survey respondents on all measures. It generates a unique value add, acts as a force multiplier for evidence-based policy making and practice, is considered a world-class training centre of excellence, contributes to the generation of best practice, and makes an important contribution to the growth and development of the current and next generations of academic talent, whose capacity to translate their research for end users is highly prized.

CREST has delivered a significant return, in terms of outputs, including at least:

• 65 research projects
• 222 CREST funded researchers
• 22 CREST PhDs
• 109 non-CREST funded contributors
• 104 research outputs (including peer reviewed journal articles and books)
• 5,665 citations
• 300+ conference presentations
• 405 downloadable resources
• 236 short guides, briefing notes and posters
• 163 networking events with 2000+ attendees
• 39 Higher Education Institutions and small to medium sized enterprises partnered with
• Estimated press reach of over 300 million readers/viewers
• 344,329 website downloads
• 20 training workshops
• 25 stewardship requests
• Over 1,231 reached through training

CREST has also offered an impressive financial return on investment.
It has received £3.68m HEI funding and £12.4m from the UK Home Office and intelligence agencies (total of £16.08m), from which it has generated an additional £23m follow on funding, which constitutes a 143% financial return on investment; for every £1 of investment, it has generated a further £1.43 in income. Its total income to date is £39,080,000, an average of £4,885,000 per year.

With developments in the external threat environment getting ever more complex and complicated, now is the time to invest more in CREST’s core organisational resource to ensure those benefits can be fully realised.