Can you feel it yet?

Citation

Hayes, S. (2012), "Can you feel it yet?", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 16 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jfmm.2012.28416aaa.001

Can you feel it yet?

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Volume 16, Issue 1.

Unusually for this time of year I am sat writing this editorial in the Sheraton Hotel, Greensboro, NC rather than sitting in my home office pushing aside Christmas wrapping paper to get to the computer. I am in North Carolina to present the research work of one of my PhD students, friend and colleague – John McLoughlin – to the delegates of a conference centred around advancements in manufacturing technology organised and managed by Sewn Products & Equipment Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA). The reasons I am here are threefold: I am, at heart, a technologist with my roots and research firmly embedded in manufacturing (and the management thereof); I have, through my colleague Angela Peers from the department of Clothing Design & Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University, a close and friendly relationship with the Chairman of SPESA (Mike Fralix) and its Managing Director (Dave Gardner) and am honoured to support their work; and finally, because we need to show our research has impact on the wider community – those not solely operating within academia.

In the UK, all higher education institutions (HEIs) are in the early stages of preparing for the research excellence framework (REF) assessment of 2014 the results of which will influence how generic research funding is distributed between these HEIs. A new and interesting component of this assessment is the inclusion of impact (social, economic, cultural, health and quality of life) in addition to the more usual bibliometric measure of outputs and the evaluation of the overall research environment all assessed with relative weightings of 20, 65 and 15 per cent, respectively. It will be a complicated process to demonstrate the impact of not so recently conducted research on the wider community, one which must be done by case-study report and which will no doubt cause much trepidation for those organisers/managers of their institutions REF submission. But surely we conduct our research so that it does have impact, it must – but when and how that impact is felt is so very hard to define. It is relatively easy to connect what we research to what we teach and thus have impact on, what some could say we have a hand in manufacturing, the students graduating from our courses. It is quite easy to demonstrate where applied research, directly sponsored by a company or social enterprise, has resulted in the adoption of an innovative product or system. But how do we show that what we publish here has impact there? This journal, as many in the Emerald stable, was born of a need for managerial development in a commercial environment. The journal, like the fashion business, has evolved and yet the heart of what we do is still reflected strongly in the Emerald strap line – Research You Can Use. Because our readership is business as well as academia, because our research is real and grounded in the activities of people and organisations and because our contributors do have something useful to tell, our research does have impact.

I started this piece with a roll-call of names for a reason, because it is through talking, by sharing and by mingling that what we write leaves the page and becomes of great use to people. Let's just hope that what I have to say to the delegates of the SPESA conference, from the podium, over coffee or at the bar has some impact – I just wonder when they will feel it!

Steve Hayes