How to Write the MSCA Impact Section

Quick answer

MSCA Impact is strongest when it starts from a causal pathway rather than a list of activities. Explain what capability, result or relationship the project creates, who can use it, how it will reach them and what changes if that transfer succeeds.

For Postdoctoral Fellowships, the researcher's career development and employability are central. For Doctoral Networks, impact also operates at programme, organisational and ecosystem level.

Start with capability, not communication

A common Impact section begins with conferences, papers, social media, a website and stakeholder workshops.

Those are channels.

First define what the project actually creates:

• new scientific knowledge;
• a method;
• a dataset;
• an experimental capability;
• a trained researcher with new expertise;
• a network between academic and non-academic organisations;
• an exploitable technology or process;
• a new doctoral-training capability.

Then identify who can use each result and why they would care.

Career impact should be concrete

For a Postdoctoral Fellowship, avoid language such as “the fellowship will improve employability”. Explain which capabilities change the applicant's career options.

A good chain looks like:

activity -> capability -> evidence -> future opportunity

For example:

industrial secondment -> experience validating technology under industrial constraints -> documented cross-sector capability -> stronger readiness for research leadership in academia or industry

That is more persuasive than simply saying the researcher will gain industrial exposure.

Scientific impact needs a pathway

A paper is an output. Scientific impact happens when other researchers can use, test, extend or challenge the result.

Ask:

• Who is the relevant research community?
• What is the result they could reuse?
• What barrier currently prevents uptake?
• What format makes the result usable: paper, code, protocol, dataset, standard, method, benchmark?
• When should dissemination happen relative to IP or exploitation decisions?

The answers determine the dissemination plan.

Societal and economic impact should remain proportionate

Do not force a small fellowship to claim that it will transform an entire sector or solve a societal challenge directly.

Use contribution language.

A research project can credibly:

• reduce a technical uncertainty;
• create evidence needed for a future clinical or industrial step;
• improve a method used by a larger community;
• enable a prototype or validation route;
• train a researcher able to bridge disciplines or sectors.

Those are meaningful impacts when the pathway is explicit.

Dissemination, exploitation and communication have different jobs

Dissemination makes results available to audiences able to use them professionally or scientifically.

Exploitation creates a route for results to generate further value, whether through follow-on research, standards, licensing, IP, product development, policy uptake or another mechanism.

Communication explains the project and its relevance to broader audiences.

The proposal should distinguish these functions and assign activities accordingly.

Use stakeholder logic

A simple matrix is often enough:

This forces the plan to connect activity with purpose.

Doctoral Networks require programme-level impact

For a Doctoral Network, impact should not be a multiplication of individual candidate benefits.

The network can create:

• durable inter-institutional training structures;
• stronger academic-industry collaboration;
• shared doctoral curricula;
• new supervision practices;
• cross-sector researcher mobility;
• reusable research infrastructure or methods;
• a cohort with a common scientific identity.

The proposal should explain what remains after the funded network ends.

Keep numbers defensible

Impact sections often become less credible when every target is inflated.

Use numbers where they help manage the project:

• number of targeted stakeholder engagements;
• expected candidate participation;
• datasets or tools released;
• training modules delivered;
• industrial validations completed.

Avoid vanity metrics unless they connect to an actual objective.

Final Impact test

For every major claim, ask:

1. What changes?
2. For whom?
3. Through which mechanism?
4. What evidence will show that it happened?

If one of those is missing, the impact pathway is incomplete.

Related MSCA resources

• Postdoctoral Fellowship strategy guide
• Doctoral Networks strategy guide
• MSCA Excellence guide
• Supervision, training and knowledge transfer

Need an Impact review?

Arvacore can review the career, dissemination, exploitation and wider-impact logic and check whether the claims are specific enough to evaluate and realistic enough to defend.

Explore MSCA proposal support or request a fit check.