Prioritizing Public Impact: Three Applications in a School of Social Work

Overview: This presentation will provide an overview of public impact scholarship and demonstrate how public impact scholarship can be prioritized in various aspects of a school of social work’s training and research activities through 1) a masters-level research methods course, 2) a PhD dissertation, and 3) a research institute’s community-led partnership.Proposal text: Background
The term “public impact scholarship” is gaining momentum in social work, calling for researchers to not only engage communities more deeply but to dedicate themselves to translating and disseminating findings beyond the academic realm (McBride et al., 2019; Sliva et al., 2019). By engaging nonacademic audiences, social work research has the potential to directly influence organizational change, policy making, and public opinion (Sliva et al., 2019). Furthermore, the goal of broad dissemination promotes the democratization of knowledge by prioritizing both the literal and functional accessibility of critical research for community use.

Objectives
This presentation will briefly outline characteristics of public impact scholarship in social work, including a working definition, conceptual framework, tensions associated with this approach, and implications for the field. A presentation of three case studies will highlight potential applications of public impact scholarship at a masters-, PhD-, and research institute-level. The first case is a MSW research methods course titled “Public impact for policy, community organizing, and research dissemination,” which trains masters-level students on strategies for translating and disseminating research findings to nonacademic audiences. The second case is a PhD dissertation that frames a new, nimble research method that centers the knowledge of field experts in defining the best practices of social innovations. The third case is a research institute’s engagement in community-led work that has resulted in widespread training, field adoption, and policy change.

Key learnings will include:
- Teaching the direct connection between disseminating public impact scholarship and social work values.
- Highlighting reciprocal community partnerships that directly inform the course of research endeavors from design to dissemination.
- Interrogating issues of power, privilege, and oppression in research dissemination and how the featured public impact applications challenge dominate narratives of traditional research dissemination.
- Centering lived experience as a legitimate form of expertise and way of knowing.
- Examining lessons learned and potential limitations of the three approaches, including practical and ethical issues in translating complex research findings.

Implications
Public impact scholarship calls for a shift beyond community engagement towards more authentic and reciprocal community partnerships that prioritize co-creation and co-ownership of knowledge. The approaches highlighted in this presentation will illustrate efforts to embrace public impact scholarship through community-focused dissemination efforts. By prioritizing public impact in all areas, including master’s courses, PhD milestones, and research institute partnerships, schools of social work have the potential to affect great change in practice, policy, and public opinion.