Adult social care in the UK is a fragmented, under-pressure sector where proven good ideas often fail to reach the people who need them. IMPACT is a £15 million centre designed to fix that—not by generating new research, but by systematically putting existing evidence into practice across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The core problem is a persistent gap between what is known to work and what actually happens in front-line services. Staff are stretched, budgets are tight, and the sector lacks the infrastructure to translate research findings into everyday care. IMPACT will tackle this by providing practical support to care providers, convening stakeholders in regional “Assemblies,” and working to overcome the cultural and logistical barriers that block change. If successful, IMPACT could transform how adult social care operates—making services more consistent, more evidence-based, and more responsive to the people who use them. It will not generate new scientific knowledge, but it will ensure that the knowledge already available stops gathering dust on a shelf and starts improving real lives.
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IMPACT stands for 'Improving Adult Care Together'. It is a new £15 million UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, co-funded by the ESRC and the Health Foundation. It is led by Professor Jon Glasby at the University of Birmingham, with a Leadership Team of 12 other academics, people drawing on care and support, and policy and practice partners - along with a broader consortium of key stakeholders from across the sector and across the four nations of the UK. IMPACT is an 'implementation centre' not a research centre, drawing on evidence gained from different types of research, the lived experience of people drawing on care and support and their carers, and the practice knowledge of social care staff. It will work across the UK to make sure that it is embedded in, and sensitive to, the very different policy contexts in each of the four nations, as well as being able to share learning across the UK as a whole. As it gets up and running, IMPACT will seek to: Provide practical support to implement evidence in the realities of everyday life and front-line services Overcome the practical and cultural barriers to using evidence in such a pressured, diverse and fragmented sector Bring key stakeholders together to share learning and co-design our work in inclusive and diverse 'IMPACT Assemblies' (based in all four nations of the UK to reflect different policy and practice contexts) Work over three phases of development ('co-design', 'establishment' and 'delivery') to build a centre that creates sustainable change and becomes a more permanent feature of adult social care landscape
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