The activity of measuring and describing the quality and impact of academic research is increasingly important in Australia and around the world. In Australia, factors behind this include:

• economic conditions and increasing competition for government funding
• development of ERA which measures the academic excellence of research and the view that impact measures would complement this assessment
• general concern to improve the operation of the national innovation system
• need to demonstrate to the public that research funds are well-spent

ERA 2018 included an Engagement & Impact Assessment report that "examined how universities are translating their research into economic, social and other benefits and encourage greater collaboration between universities, industries and other end-users of research."  In this context the ARC used the following definitions: 

• Engagement: the interaction between researchers and research end-users outside of academia (including governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations, communities and community organisations), for the mutually beneficial transfer of knowledge, technologies,  methods or resources.
• Impact: the contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture, beyond the contribution to academic research.​

Source: https://utas.libguides.com/research_impact

This guide provides information on a range of metrics and the tools available to calculate those traditional quantitative metrics.

Information on Alternative metrics, or Altmetrics, is available in the online guide: Altmetrics

Information on how to capture evidence and describe research outputs is available in the online guide: Research Evidence for Grants and Promotion

It is important to communicate your research, this can be achieved by:

• Creating researcher profiles
• Making your publications available via open access 
• Sharing your research data
• Communicating your research on social media
• Joining researcher networks

For more information on communicating and sharing your research consult the online guide: Strategic publishing

With great power comes the responsible use of metrics (29:25 min) by University of Cambridge (YouTube)