Research impact

Contributing to society is central to our mission at the University of St Andrews Business School. We are dedicated to delivering tangible benefits to society and organisations by making our research and expertise accessible, relevant and useful. We are also committed to using the latest evidence on research use to enhance our engagement and ensure our research makes a meaningful difference, drawing on research conducted by members of the Researching and Understanding Research Use (RURU) Network.

Research activities REF 2029

Lensball view of he School of Management, University of St Andrews

Research beneficiaries

Our research contributes to policy debates and organisational practices in a wide range of areas including access to education, workplace surveillance, labour markets, corporate taxation and financing, financial wellbeing, entrepreneurship careers, gender equality, climate change, human rights, philanthropy and development economics.

Policymakers
Regulatory bodies
Public sector organisations
Commercial businesses and start-ups
Non-profit organisations
Community groups
- Local foodbanks
- Cannabis Task Force bodies

Channels for impact

Engaging with the wider world is at the heart of our approach to research impact. We define engagement as the interaction between researchers and those outside of academia for the mutually beneficial transfer of knowledge, technologies, methods or resources. Researchers across the school use a range of approaches to engage with potential research beneficiaries. Below you will find a few examples of our work.

Researchers and external partners working together
- Dr Cailean Gallagher is undertaking participatory research projects with gig workers through the Workers' Observatory (a hub for workers, researchers and tech experts to address issues facing platform-based workers in the gig economy in Edinburgh and the East of Scotland).
- Dr Jonathan Swarbrick has collaborated with the Bank of Canada on research studying an extended monetary policy toolkit and how monetary policies should be sequenced during a large shock such as the covid pandemic.
- Dr Shuting Liu, Dr David Dowell, Dr Xi Xi and Dr Janis Petzinger are collaborating with Zero Waste Scotland on public perceptions of the environmental impacts of reusable and disposable cups.
- Dr Joao Rafael Cunha has collaborated with the Central Bank of Ireland on research to understand lending patterns in Ireland.
Research requested by a non-academic organisation
- Dr Vicky Ward has undertaken research on parliamentary research services and an analysis of REF impact case studies for the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
- Dr Margaret Leighton has undertaken consultancy for Save the Children to carry out and support quantitative evaluations of educational interventions.
- Professor Alina Baluch's research on delivering a sustainable social care workforce (including projects on the Fair Work agenda, recruitment and retention, Scottish Living Wage and contract withdrawal), was commissioned by various third sector organisations, including the Coalition of Care & Support Providers Scotland and ARK Housing.
- Dr Janis Petzinger and Professor Tobias Jung are undertaking research on place-based philanthropy and local giving schemes in the UK for the Rank Foundation.
- Professor Kevin Orr as Academic Fellow of the Scottish Parliament conducted a study of the parliament building, resulting in a Report to the Corporate Body of the parliament.
Network leads, expert advisors, and visiting academics
- Dr Sapnoti Eswar engages with regulators including the Competition and Markets Authority, Financial Conduct Authority, Ofcom, and Ofgem to share knowledge about the development of economic regulation in the UK.
- Professor Kirstie Ball is co-convenor of the Scottish Privacy Forum in conjunction with the UK Information Commissioners Office in Scotland.
- Professor Ross Brown has been working with the OECD for over 10 years on the topic of entrepreneurial ecosystems and is regularly invited to contribute to events and meetings on this topic.
- Dr Cinla Akinci engages regularly with the UK police communities and the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) as part of her research on intuitive decision making in first-response operational police work and strategic decisions.
Consultations by government, and professional or public sector bodies
- Professor John Wilson led a review of credit unions in Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland Executive and has provided evidence to the House of Lords EU Internal Markets Sub-Committee, HM Treasury Consultation on Financing Growth in Innovative Firms and UK Parliament Call for Evidence on Impacts of COVID-19 on Scotland.
- Professor Tobias Jung was an invited witness to the Scottish Parliament’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee inquiry into how the Scottish Government’s approach to fair and efficient funding can contribute to the continued effectiveness of the third sector.
- Professor Bert Scholtens provide expert advice to the Dutch Ministries of Finance and of Infrastructure and Watermanagement on regulation for incentivising private financial institutions to address the consequences of climate change.
Sharing research activities and benefits in the community
- Dr Sandra Romenska delivered leadership and organisational effectiveness workshops for vice-chancellors from seven universities in Ghana and a leadership development programme for the World Scholars programme in Indonesia.
- Dr Cinla Akinci delivered talks to senior officers and soldiers of the British Armed Forces on ‘intuitive decision making in leadership’ during their annual Leadership Week at Leuchars Army Base.
Sharing research with non-academic audiences via blogs and more
- Professor Philip Roscoe has appeared on BBC Radio 3, and has contributed to podcasts including Making Money, New Books in Critical Theory, and Transforming Society. He has written for numerous media outlets including The Conversation, The Guardian and the Literary Review. In 2019 and 2020 he wrote and produced his own acclaimed podcast, How to Build a Stock Exchange.
- Dr Radek Stefanski’s research on fossil fuel subsidies has appeared in multiple media outlets including The Economist, Vice News, Handelsblatt, Business Insider, Greenpeace Magazine, Economia Hoy, VOXEU, The Conversation, IFL Science, The Raw Story, The Ecologist and YubaNet.
- Professor Kirstie Ball was interviewed as part of The Bunker podcast in September 2022.

Research excellence framework

The REF is the UK's system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. It's a rigorous process where universities submit details of their research outputs, their impact, and the environment that supports their research. The REF results help determine how much research funding each university receives, making it a vital part of the UK's research landscape.

Following the May 2022 publication of the results of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, the School of Management performed well in the Business and Management Studies panel across the constituent components of outputs, impact, and research environment.

Overall, 88% of the School's research activity across the three components of the REF was deemed to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

Impact case studies that were considered to demonstrate impacts of outstanding or very considerable reach and significance were:
- financial cooperatives (credit unions)
- evidence-based policy
- small and medium-sized enterprises
The REF 2021 results demonstrated that 100% of the School's research environment was assessed as being conducive to producing world-leading or internationally excellent research with considerable reach and significance, earning 3* and 4* ratings.

Research impact

Research beneficiaries

Range of stakeholders

Channels for impact

Collaborative research and co-production

Research consultancy and commissioned research

Well-established networks with policy-making, practice, and professional communities

Policy reviews, consultations, and working groups

Public engagement

Dissemination

Research excellence framework

2021 results

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