Before I worked in researcher development, research culture and knowledge exchange capacity-building, I was a researcher in social innovation and impact. Even then, I was fascinated by a deceptively simple question: what creates meaningful impact?
At the time, I explored how organisations, communities, and systems respond to complex societal challenges. What struck me then, and what continues to shape my thinking today, is that transformative change emerges from ecosystems: people, relationships, resources, trust, shared purpose, and the conditions that enable innovation to flourish.
Attending the Knowledge Exchange UK Conference 2026 prompted me to revisit this conviction.
Meaningful Impact Begins Long Before Impact Happens Because KE is a People Profession
Today, my focus at the University of Liverpool includes KE and research impact capacity-building via a flagship central programme that I established in 2018, shortlisted for PraxisAuril’s Academic Engagement of the Year in 2021. I work with researchers, professional services colleagues, external partners and communities to strengthen the skills, confidence, networks and cultures that underpin effective knowledge exchange and research impact.
Yet despite working in this space for many years, the KEUK Conference 2026 prompted me to muse on something fundamental: KE is often discussed in terms of outputs: partnerships formed, innovations commercialised, policies influenced, businesses supported, communities engaged. However, what I heard repeatedly throughout the conference was that successful KE begins much earlier – because it begins with people.
Session after session reinforced the importance of capability, relationships, trust, collaboration and leadership. Whether speakers were discussing commercialisation, place-based innovation, policy influence, community engagement or research partnerships, the underlying challenge was remarkably similar: how do we create the conditions that enable people to work together effectively to generate meaningful impact?
A notable conference takeaway for me was that although our institutional contexts differ, many of our aspirations and challenges are remarkably similar.
Impact Is Relational, Not Transactional
At Liverpool, KE capacity-building is considered strategic infrastructure, embedded across our Research and Impact Strategy 2031. We recognise that strong partnerships, effective policy engagement, successful innovation, and sustainable impact all depend on people who are equipped and empowered to navigate increasingly VUCA environments.
The conference’s emphasis on collaboration resonated strongly with my own professional practice and felt so familiar: social innovation scholars have long argued that complex challenges cannot be solved by organisations acting alone. Impact is relational, emerging through partnerships, shared purpose and collective action. Whether discussing AI, community empowerment, regional growth or innovation, speakers repeatedly returned to relationships, trust and shared problem-solving as foundations for sustainable impact.
I was particularly struck by one speaker’s comment that sometimes, it is the people involved in KE projects who contribute even greater value than the financial value of the project!
Closing the Loop Between Researcher Development and Knowledge Exchange
KEUK Conference 2026 reinforced the growing recognition of KE as a profession in its own right. Sessions around capability frameworks, mentoring, career pathways and communities of practice highlighted the increasing need for professionals who can work across organisational, disciplinary and sectoral boundaries.
Perhaps my strongest reflection from KEUK Conference 2026 relates to how we often discuss researcher development and KE as though they are separate agendas. My experience suggests the opposite. KE cannot flourish without researchers who possess the confidence, skills, networks and mindset to engage beyond academia. Equally, researcher development is at its most powerful when it helps people create value beyond their immediate disciplinary communities. Seen through this lens, researcher development and KE capacity-building are not competing priorities; they are mutually reinforcing investments in people. One develops the capability, the other provides the opportunity to apply it.
Having spent 10+ years working across researcher development, research culture and impact, the conference reinforced my belief that these are not distinct endeavours but different expressions of the same fundamental challenge: creating the conditions in which people, ideas and partnerships can thrive. Whether we call it researcher development, knowledge exchange, innovation or impact, the underlying task and priority remains remarkably similar: develop our people and practices.
Creating the Conditions for Meaningful Impact
The future of KE undoubtedly involves new technologies, new partnerships and new funding models. But our greatest investment will always remain in people.
Perhaps the most important question we should be asking is not “What creates meaningful impact?” but “How do we create more people who are capable, confident and connected enough to make meaningful impact happen?” It is my firm belief that everything else follows from there.
Dr Saneeya Qureshi
Head of Researcher Development and Culture, The Academy, University of Liverpool