How research is assessed affects what types of knowledge are valued, incentivized, and rewarded. An increasingly important element of contemporary research evaluation is the measurement of the wider impact of research (e.g. benefit to society, culture or economy). Although the measurement of impact has been highly contested, the area is under-theorized and dominated by pragmatic research policy imperatives. Informed by a sociological perspective, this article intervenes in this context by reframing research impact as the attainment and maintenance of capital (i.e. symbolic power or status) in various fields beyond academia. It argues that research impact occurs at the intersection of these fields of power. The article shows that impact involves various combinations of capital from the scholarly field, the field of politics, the field of application, the media field, and the economic field, which provide credibility, authority, utility, visibility, and weight, respectively. In exploring the forms of worth and value that underpin the pursuit of legitimacy in these fields, the article provides a new theoretical framework for understanding research impact and its assessment.

Recent feminist and sociological scholarship has problematised the underlying medical assumptions in the established literature on infant feeding by attending to the social and discursive construction of breastfeeding practice. Such work has suggested that the pervasive cultural discourse around breastfeeding as the ‘morally correct’ choice has implications for actual decisions and practices as well as subjective judgements and feelings, particularly those of guilt and inadequacy. The present study employs a discursive approach to analyse the ways in which childcare materials published since 2000 construct the issue of infant feeding. In particular, we focus upon the ways in which these materials attend to the possible implications of pro-breastfeeding discourses for mothers’ subjective experience of guilt. We highlight a focus within the materials on not ‘feeling’ guilty, as opposed to affirmations that formula feeding mothers are not guilty. The complex and potentially problematic nature of such public health messages in terms of gendered subjectivities is considered.

This paper offers a systematic review of the evolution of research impact assessment in Australia and the UK. We consider its inception and detail the development of relevant policy and procedures in each country. The paper sets out the results of a comparative analysis of public policy documents, newspaper commentary and academic literature in both countries. We examined the differences and commonalities between the two nations, revealing evaluation criteria and uncovering justifications for the adoption of impact assessment. The paper highlights the convergence and divergence of the two countries' policy and procedures, as well as the political and bureaucratic contexts that have shaped their design and implementation. The paper shows that the synergistic, intermittent and iterative development of relevant policy and procedures in the two nations has been mutually beneficial for the evolution of retrospective impact assessment.

At a time when truth and facts are highly contested, understanding how knowledge gains legitimacy is crucial. Creating valuable policy knowledge involves navigating ‘a space between fields’, where actors and ideas from different social worlds come into play. This article outlines a novel set of strategies for attaining legitimacy within this space. Drawing on mixed‐methods analysis of interview and publication data from 12 development research organizations, the article argues that legitimacy centres around three primary types of ‘coherence’. Coherence in identity is the demonstration of ‘proper’ goals via negotiation of organizational and individual identity. Coherence in process is the demonstration of ‘proper’ processes through maintenance of independence, integrity and transparency. Coherence in outcome is the demonstration of ‘proper’ outcomes via creation of the ‘right’ products, audience and impact. Mastery of these three areas makes possible the production of credible, distinctive and significant knowledge.