Editorial: Telling the insight story

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By the time this issue of Impact – the last ever – is published, we will have a new government in the UK. I’m writing this a week before the election – and tempting as it is to make predictions, I’ll leave that to the experts. What I will say is: I hope whoever ends up in 10 Downing Street pays attention to data and insight. Not just what they want to hear. I live in hope…

I write this at the end of an unusual tenure as editor of the magazine. I took up the role in April 2020, shortly after the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Remembering that time, it feels like a different world. While governments and organisations grappled with the pandemic, we navigated a challenging time in our working lives.

Practical adjustments to putting together a magazine remotely were handled remarkably by our brilliant partners at CPL One, but it was trickier to line up people willing to speak to us about the work they were doing at a time when a lot of that work was experimental and felt on shaky ground.

Still, we worked hard to bring research stories to the forefront, writing about how businesses and brands were using insight to navigate such uncertain times.

Later, as a health crisis became an economic one, the magazine covered how brands were adapting to shifts in consumer behaviour, how companies were responding to flexible working, and how the industry continued to innovate. We saw that those who listened to insight survived and thrived.

MRS launched Impact in 2013 to shine a spotlight on the impact of research – and it’s been fascinating to edit the magazine at a time of such societal flux, with the strapline ‘using insight and evidence to make a difference’ never more appropriate.

In the final issue, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the impact of Impact, so, I invited MRS colleagues and former editors to share their memories and highlights from over the years.

It was also a pleasure to profile MRS chief executive Jane Frost, who shared her thoughts on the importance of looking outwards, in order to learn and grow as businesses and as people.

That curiosity will be essential to navigating change – an omnipresent theme. In the October 2023 issue, a report on the rise of foresight began with an observation made by philosopher Derek Parfit in 2011: “We live during the hinge of history. The world has never changed as fast.”

Today, the insight industry is arguably at another hinge of history within its own story. Market and social researchers, data analysts and other insight professionals are some of the few able to harness change to their advantage and shape their own future.

It’s why we got a cross-section of the sector to reimagine the future by asking ‘what if?’. The report, which inspired the cover art, explores questions about representation, sustainability, flexible working, inclusion, artificial intelligence and getting the industry the value it deserves. Within its pages, there’s the beginnings of a manifesto for future growth. If you take anything away from this issue, ask yourself ‘what if’ we could do things differently? How could that shape a different reality? I hope that’s what our new political leaders will be doing.

Although we might be closing a door with the end of Impact, insight is more important to the world than ever. We will continue to tell the story of insight, in a new way, as we look ahead to the relaunch of the Research Live website.

Thank you for your support and readership over the years.