This event was a major public presentation of material from the substantial research programme jointly funded by ESRC and the funding councils for higher education in England and each of the devolved administrations in the UK. It is a significant multi‐centre programme, embracing work on a wide range of aspects of impact, involving 11 projects spread across 17 HEIs around the UK, coordinated at Strathclyde University, and costing over £3m. Whilst many of the projects are concerned essentially with the analysis of impact in economic terms, some include an attempt to understand the social impact of student populations in cities, the dynamics of business/university interaction, and cultural impacts in regions. Taken together, they represent a significant development in the understanding of impact, in the UK at least, and provide an important yardstick
to look at work in other parts of the world. For PASCAL in particular, the programme provides a context in which to locate to its work in the PURE programme on university engagement. Full details of the ESRC programme will be found at www.impact‐hei.ac.uk .