What is Impact?

Answer the question, "So what?" (What difference does it make, to whom? What's the benefit?)

The reportable and verifiable difference a land-grant program makes in the lives of citizens.

Ultimately, the public expects us to be accountable and to show the impact of our land-grant programs. Impact is the difference our programs are making in people's lives.

Impact reporting is not:

• A description of process
• The number of papers published
• The number of people attending a meeting

Impact reporting is:

• An issue or a statement of the problem or situation
• What the research project did to solve it
• The payoff or benefit (i.e. impact) to the client or clients

Impact example #1

Issue
Mastitis, a disease caused most often by infection of a cow's mammary gland, is the dairy industry's costliest problem -- representing $2 billion a year nationwide.

Half of dairy cow mastitis cases occur during the first and last week of the dry period when the animal is not being milked. During those times, current mastitis treatment, including antibiotics, can be ineffective and expensive, and may create the potential for residues in milk if not used and monitored properly.

What's been done
An Iowa State University animal scientist and an expert in polymers and plastics developed a breathable teat sealant that prevents mastitis by keeping out bacteria while maintaining tissue health and integrity. ISU research demonstrated that the dip provides a protective mammary gland coating that reduced infections at calving by about 40 percent.

Impact
Dry period mastitis costs dairy producers up to $500 per case. Preventing 40 percent of expected mastitis cases by using the teat sealant would save the average Iowa dairy producer with 65 cows about $6,500 a year.

Impact example #2

Issue
Foodborne illnesses kill an estimated 9,000 Americans each year and make more than 4 million sick. About half of these cases are caused by animal products.

What's been done
Iowa State University houses one of the few commercial-sized food irradiators at a U.S. educational institution, providing researchers and meat processors with a real-world facility to test this technology. Research has found that irradiating meat and poultry reduces microbial contamination to a level that virtually eliminates the risk of foodborne illness and more than doubles the product's shelf life on average. Irradiated meat tastes the same and the nutritional content is identical to non-irradiated meat, but its color may darken.

Impact
The Food and Drug Administration used ISU research findings in its decision to approve the irradiation of ground beef, a widely used product that is especially susceptible to foodborne contamination. Irradiation of half of the meat and poultry sold in the United States could reduce the number of foodborne caused deaths by 2,250 and illnesses by a million.