High-quality research can do amazing things. It can take whole academic fields in a new direction, answer age old questions and revolutionise how we function as a society. But to achieve these things, quality isn’t enough. But to achieve these things, quality isn’t enough. Your research needs to reach the right people and explain itself in an understandable and engaging way to achieve its full potential.
To assess the impact and benefits of research, and allocate funding, the University Research Excellence Framework (REF) was created. So, when it comes to creating change with your research, and securing the funding to do more, the higher your REF score, the better.
Impact and reach play a big part in your REF score, and whiteboard animation can help you explain and share your findings in a way that explains them, taking them far and wide. This blog will take a look at how animation can help.
What is the University Research Excellence Framework?
At its heart, the Research Excellence Framework assesses the quality of research being conducted in higher education institutions, giving it a score that ranges from unclassified to 4*. Covering areas such as evidence base and accountability, the very best research is world-leading when it comes to its rigour, significance and originality. When it comes to your REF score (and future funding), it all comes down to the impact of your research and your outputs - whether they’re lectures, conferences, books or animations.
How whiteboard animation can increase your research impact and REF score
We helped pioneer whiteboard animation when we created the RSA Animates series. It was an exciting series to work on and in each Animate, we used visual thinking to explain and share complex ideas. The series was a hit, and today, it has had over 100 million views.
As the popularity of video has risen and more and more of us have get smart phones, the ability of whiteboard animation to share ideas has increased massively. When it comes to sharing these ideas, animation has some exciting strengths and features that supercharge reach and understanding.
Abstract and complex ideas can feel simple
Whiteboard animation uses illustrations, animation, a voiceover and onscreen text to explain an idea. This allows it to use multiple information streams and provide all the key details and essential context that are needed.
At the core of every good whiteboard animation is visual thinking. Visual devices like metaphors allow you to translate ideas into more relatable forms that make them more understandable and engaging. Every animation is bespoke, so you can add the ideal cultural references, even humour, that your audience will connect with.
This means whiteboard animation can capture the impact and needs of even the most abstract research, and we’ve used it to share research about microplastics and blackholes.
The detail heavy can be made entertaining
Sometimes, research isn’t abstract but full of information and details that your audience need to understand. By using multiple information streams, you can get a lot across quickly and in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming.
Visual thinking allows you to package your information in a way that feels entertaining and enjoyable, while still communicating the seriousness and importance of your message. This comes into its own when you have lots of data to summarise and are worried about how to show it to audiences without losing research impact.
Animation and visual thinking sets even the most detailed research free of the restrictions that prevent it being shared far and wide, allowing the important ideas to shine through. There is even the possibility of including a call to action, to sign post your viewers to next steps.
Points develop and show the big picture
No idea arrives fully formed, each goes through evolution and development. When it comes to communicating your research and giving it the very best explanation, showing this evolution can be a game changer. Showing how a point or piece of information relates to others can also give vital context. These are two areas where whiteboard animation can help.
By combining custom illustrations, metaphors and other visual tools, you can show how an idea develops and grows. Onscreen text and voiceovers can guide viewers and add extra clarity, allowing you to get the full richness and complexity of your work across in a way that is relevant and accessible to your audience.
Visual thinking has another element, the way points and illustrations are mapped in space. This is an important consideration in any whiteboard animation. By mapping information and using animation well, you can show how different points in a the narrative are linked. Not only does this give them that extra context, whiteboard animation helps you show how points fit into the big picture
You can connect with your audience at a human level
Getting people onboard and invested in an idea or piece of research is a must if you want it to reach big audiences and achieve the right impact. Whiteboard animation gives you plenty of ways to do this, from the tone and style of language in the script to the choice of voiceover artist and the visual references in the video.
Using the above, and well-designed settings and characters, you can create the perfect scene for your research animation and focus it exactly on your target audience. Find out more about emphasising through whiteboard animation here.
Your research is versatile, far reaching and memorable
There’s nothing like reaching lots of people and leaving a lasting impression on them to boost research impact, and when it comes to these, whiteboard animation is the ideal research output.
These days there are few places videos can’t reach, including most people’s pockets. One of the best things about sharing academic research using video is that you can guarantee the same experience for everyone. Your audience could be watching on YouTube through their phone, on social media or visiting a website. Viewers could even be watching on a smart TV or the big screen if the animation is shown in a classroom, lecture or at a conference.
The versatility of video to work in all these settings allows your research to go far and wide, reaching academic and general audiences. And when it reaches them, the visual thinking strengths we’ve mentioned above make what you’re saying memorable and shareable. We wanted to test this, so working with Professor Richard Wiseman, we compared a ‘talking head’ video with a whiteboard animation that used the same voiceover.
We found that watching the whiteboard animation, viewers retained 15% more information and were 66% more likely to share the video with others.
The academic value of whiteboard animation
“My research lying behind the film was being transmitted to an audience far vaster than that of my best-selling book (40,000 copies).”
Not just a glossy research output, whiteboard animation has proven itself an invaluable tool in learning environments and the wider world. Research by the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that whiteboard animations given to 375 tutorial students had a positive impact on their learning. Their finding showed that:
92.1% of students who watched the animations said they were helpful in gaining knowledge
92.7% of students said the animations were helpful in understanding texts and clarifying concepts
86.8% of students said the animations were helpful in tutorial studies
We were also very happy to read in the study that 87.4% of the students said that the animations had raised their interest in the issues discussed in the tutorial classes. This has been echoed by the experience of Ray Laurence, professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University.
We created two TED-Ed videos for Ray. They’ve had over 21 million views and Ray recently won first prize in ‘Making Animated Films for High School Educators’ from Macquarie University’s Researchers’ IMPACT Program. Ray explained how his findings made YouTube audiences question and re-think ancient Rome in an interview for us.
“Young men in the USA did not know that their equivalents in ancient Rome routinely drunk alcohol. Many commentators worried about the skin tone of Lucius, as an Italian who spent time outside, he has a tan – some thought he was not white. Thus, we see evidence of challenging a stereotype that Romans were a white race, as opposed to a multi-cultural society.”
Academic research animation examples
“Smart, appealing, creative communication of ideas is an ESSENTIAL part of social change – far too often I see worthy, evidence-based causes falter because their advocates assume the arguments are self-evident.”
We’ve had the opportunity to work with many academics and universities. Each one is a chance to learn and to stretch our visual thinking muscles! We strongly believe in the value whiteboard animation can add to research impact, it’s a research output that can take research far and wide. Here are just four examples of our work.
The RSA Animates series gave us the opportunity to work with many academics, including Sir Ken Robinson, Iain McGilchrist and Ha Joon Chang.
This is one of our animations with Ray Laurence, revealing a glimpse into teenage life in ancient Rome. Not in our whiteboard style, we enjoy creating animations like this and tailor our work to clients.
Professor Jamie Woodward’s research into microplastics in UK revealed the amount of untreated wastewater being dumped into UK rivers and was mentioned in the UK’s Parliament.
It was an honour to work with Professor Stephen Hawking. We created this animation explaining his supertranslations theory to be played at the launch of his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions.
“I gave a talk last week in the Czech Republic in Ostrava at the Melting Pot Ideas Festival ... [the animation] was a really good way in that context to communicate those ideas to a mixed audience, when English wasn’t their first language.”
When it comes to scoring highly on the Research Excellence Framework, whiteboard animations can play a big part in your research impact and reach! Whiteboard animation was designed for just this purpose and has brought new ideas with millions with series like the RSA Animates and Ray Laurence’s animation about ancient Rome.
No subject is too abstract or detail heavy. If you have a research project you’d like to share with colleagues, students or the public, we’d love to talk to you. Book a free video creative consultation or contact us today!
I have written a lot about failure. It’s something of a fascination for me. I am in a constantly evolving process with failure. When does failure become a success? Are there any true failures or is it just an endless process?