This is a post originally written in 2013. Some of my older thinking does not reflect my current views. Older links are even less likely to be current.
Whether you’re an early career researcher, or at a more advanced stage in your career trajectory, chances are that you are under pressure not only to publish more but also to increase the impact of your research. Impact itself is a somewhat nebulous term, but my understanding is that it encompasses things like citations (academic impact) and real-world applications of your research (external impact).
But what can one do to maximise research impact? While there is much advice (including on this blog) on other aspects of publishing, achieving research impact is perhaps less well covered. To help with this, the LSE Impact of Social Sciences group have produced a helpful handbook entitled Maximising the Impacts of Your Research: A Handbook for Social Scientists, where you can find advice on understanding and maximising impact.
What makes this handbook useful?
The authors note that:
In the past, there has been no one source of systematic advice on how to maximize the academic impacts of your research in terms of citations and other measures of influence. And almost no sources at all have helped researchers to achieve greater visibility and impacts with audiences outside the university. Instead researchers have had to rely on informal knowledge and picking up random hints and tips here and there from colleagues, and from their own personal experience. This Handbook remedies this key gap and opens the door to researchers achieving a more professional and focused approach to their research from the outset.
What can you find in this handbook?
The handbook provides a lot of useful practical advice that can help you to maximise research impact, both academic and external. Some of the topics it covers include:
- What shapes the citing of academic publications
- Tracking citations, including new-internet based tracking systems
- Key measures of academic influence
- Strategies for getting better cited
- External (i.e., non-academic) research impacts
Download the handbook
You can access the book, Maximising the Impacts of Your Research: A Handbook for Social Scientists, by clicking on the button below:
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About me
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. He holds a PhD and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Manchester, UK and a BA in English Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
His research explores a wide range of issues connected with language (teacher) education, including language contact and plurilingualism, linguistic identities and ideologies, language policy and didactics, often using a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory perspective to tease out connections between them. Some of his work includes the research monograph The Intentional Dynamics of TESOL (2021, De Gruyter; with Juup Stelma) and the edited volume Doctoral Study and Getting Published (2025, Emerald; with Richard Fay), as well as numerous other publications.
Achilleas currently contributes to several projects that bring together his long-standing interests in language education, teacher development, and the social dimensions of language learning. As the coordinator of the AI Lang (Artificial Intelligence in Language Education) expert team at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, he is active in developing principles and resources to help educators make informed, pedagogically grounded use of AI in their teaching. He also leads the University of Thessaly team of ReaLiTea (Research Literacy of Teachers), a project that supports language teachers to engage with, and contribute to, educational research. Alongside these, he contributes to LocalLing (Revitalisation of Linguistic Diversity and Cultural Heritage), a Horizon-funded initiative for the preservation of heritage and minority languages globally.
In addition to the above, Achilleas is the (co)editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Education and Language Review, and welcomes contributions that explore the dynamic intersections between language, education, and society.
About this post
This blog is a space for slow, reflective thinking about applied linguistics, language education, professional development, and the role of technology in language teaching and learning. Transparency about process, tools, and authorship is part of that commitment.
- I wrote this post on 13 November 2013. I revised the post on 27 September 2026, when I added a disclaimer about old links, and aligned the functionality and aesthetics of the post with the overall look of the blog. The substantive content of the post, however, remains unchanged.
- The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Thessaly or any other entity with which I am affiliated.
- As of 2026, I no longer remember where the featured image comes from, but it is almost certainly from Pexels and therefore free to use.
About me
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the University of Thessaly (Greece). He holds a PhD and an MA in TESOL from the University of Manchester, UK. He has published extensively about language teaching and language teacher education.
About this post
This post originally appeared on 13 November 2013. The content of the post does not reflect the view of my current or past employers.
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