Impact narratives

Research Explorer

Ghent University has several systems and platforms to support the (administrative) processes within the domain of research and to ensure that both internal and external stakeholders are aware of what research is happening. The Integrated Research Information System or GISMO works is both a relational database (that even shares data with the Flemish government agencies) and an application that supports various processes of the research lifecycle. GISMO has three faces: a back-office environment for the central administration, a web application for the research community and the research portal Research Explorer.

https://research.ugent.be

This portal allows internal and external stakeholders to find information about various aspects of research at Ghent University: which researchers and research groups are affiliated with the university and what their expertise is, what research infrastructure is offered, which projects (past and present) are being carried out, and which publications are available via the repository.

In December 2025, the Research Explorer underwent an important expansion: a new, separate “Outputs and impact” button giving access to overviews of publications, datasets, patents and impact narratives.

Impact narratives

This last section allows you to navigate through various topics for which diverse content (often the result of science communication activities) has been brought together – organised in more than 400 topics - illustrating the significance and (potential) impact of research within this topic.

Various (reliable and sustainable) online platforms/sources were identified on which content is shared that provides background information on Ghent University's research themes and methods, e.g. Ghent University’s own blog platform, communication platforms of major funders such as FWO and the European Commission (CORDIS, Horizon Magazine), major local and international science communication initiatives (Universiteit van Vlaanderen, Eos, TEDX), etc. All content needs to be openly accessible (no paywall or log-in), mainly in the form of articles and blog posts, videos and podcasts.

In line with the design of the Research Explorer, the impact narratives are presented in both Dutch and English (although the original language of the online source is maintained).

In a number of cases, an additional description is added explaining the available research expertise at Ghent University. In all cases standard metadata is added such as type of impact, research discipline, and relevant keywords. Almost every impact narrative also contains a separate tab for a minimal overview of relevant research projects.

Browse the impact narrative topics

Learnings

The Impact Narratives section was implemented as part of the institutional impact policy and aims not only to inspire the research community itself, but also to recognise its efforts in the field of knowledge valorisation. An overview such as this also ensures that people outside Ghent University gain a better insight into and understanding of how Ghent University research actively seeks (and finds) connections with society.

The web service of GISMO already allowed researchers to register their scientific and knowledge valorisation activities and make some of them visible via their personal profile in the Research Explorer but the addition of impact narratives allowed for an more attractive look and feel, and for better storytelling. Not as disconnected public relations pieces but “in context” of the Ghent University research ecosystem.

The initial inventory was compiled during the summer and autumn of 2025, with a first update around Easter 2026. The most recent content is therefore up until this period. However, the intention is to provide continual updates and check for broken links. In a first phase, the overview of impact narratives is centrally managed by the research administration (via the impact policy advisor).
Completeness was not the aim – in that sense, a “reverse” approach was taken (starting from the available and easily accessible content). The approach/structure was certainly also guided by pragmatism, i.e. to make additional use of numerous existing and well-known sources.

It is still early days to demonstrate or evidence the impact of making such a platform available but we are hopeful that it may be broadly used, by different stakeholders, for different aims, and with different results. Although the work behind the scenes was extensive, it still feels like a “gathering the low-hanging fruit” and reuse of already available information – an approach which differs greatly from the many other initiatives whereby impact stories are written from scratch. Such an approach is often not an option for the many one-person impact teams across Europe or for institutions that are not part of a top-down research assessment system in which impact case studies are a part of the requirements for evaluation and funding.