WERA208: Western Region Impact Statement Development
Statement of Issues and Justification
Accountability with respect to the use of public resources in the conduct of research and extension programs has become very important to policy makers and stakeholders. And a key part to accountability is the question of the impact of these programs on the well-being of stakeholders. The land grant system in conjunction with the federal research and extension partner began responding to this issue in 1993 with the formation of a National-Joint Image Enhancement Committee. This committee meets annually to prepare "National Impact Statements" based on submissions from each of the states. This has resulted in the creation of a national impact database which now includes several thousand impact statements. These statements are used by individual states as well as at the national level to communicate the contributions of research and extension to the well-being of people at the local, state, and national level. They reflect individual state contributions toward addressing an issue that is common to many states and important nationally. In 1998, the Research and Education Title of the Farm Bill (AREERA) added some additional requirements relative to the use of federal funds in the conduct of research and extension activities, namely, increased emphasis is placed on multistate, multidisciplinary, and integration of research and extension. This has created a need to institute a process for developing impact statements to reflect these additional requirements. In 1997 and 1998 meetings were held involving "Communications Specialist" from the member states of the western region to began developing impact statements to assist the national committee in the preparation of national impact statements. A meeting was not held in 1999 because it was not clear what the role of this group might be relative to developing impact statements for the region that could be integrated with the individual state and national impact statements. However, the Western Experiment Station and Extension Directors at their joint summer meeting in July, 2000, determined that in order to address multisate research and extension efforts, it would be desirable to re-convene the "Communication Specialist" group. This group was re-convened in December, 2000 and from that meeting it became clear that there is interest and need to formalize this effort. This will ensure that issues important to the western region as a whole, that are being addressed by individual states as well as by coordinated efforts can be identified and accounted for. The purpose of this petition is to create a WCC comprised of communication specialists from the member institutions to accomplish this important task.
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