Tourism studies and the changing research ecosystem

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper scrutinises the ‘research impact’ of the impact agenda by Western governments, in terms of what it is doing to the research process as a whole. Tourism studies with its specific intricacies and disputed disciplinary status represents the focal point, but the argument extends to the entire research ecosystem as a whole. In specific, the paper addresses changes to the training regime of early career researchers. The created survivor bias of impact claims becomes the basis of scholarly career progression. How the accounting and narrating of research impact claims represents a new workload requirement for scholars. The challenges in identifying and articulating impact claims in the first place, and last but not least, the power dimension and political conflicts that arise in who has the authority to label impact claims as beneficial in the first place. The paper’s discussion focuses on the short, medium and long-term consequences of these changes to the scholarly lives. With the conclusion, that whilst the created vulnerabilities to the authority of [tourism] research claims are real, such developments also represents a viable opportunity to reassess, revalue and acknowledge parts of the research process that were normalised and/or trivialised in the past.


Introduction to an unrecognised vulnerability
Tourism studies represent a latecomer in the assemblage of academic disciplines/departments found at modern universities. Hence, there is a fruitful ongoing debate questioning if it constitutes a discipline in its own right (Tribe & Paddison, 2021), or if it is rather a common subject area to be harvested by different academic disciplines (Tribe & Liburd, 2016). Cases for both contingencies have been made, and indeed are relevant to questions of legitimacy, expertise and utility of the produced knowledge. This conceptual paper adds an additional dimension to these debates, and scrutinise the academic knowledge production as a whole. Specifically, how the evaluation of modern research impactas a quality criterionmay represent a vulnerability for scientific knowledge production in general and tourism in particular (Brauer et al., 2019(Brauer et al., , 2020(Brauer et al., , 2021a(Brauer et al., , 2021b. Here, tourism studies scholars represent a part of modern academia, and additionally serve as a lens to better understand the process of [tourism] knowledge production in general. Already in 2011, the question if 'the impact agenda will create a Franksteinian monster [?]' was posed (Martin, 2011, p. 247). This agenda represents Western governments' emphasis on environmental, economic, social and cultural impact of research whilst also being a justification for research funding. Hence, why the obvious relevance for tourism studies scholars, here they may constitute the proverbial canary in the coalmine, of much larger changes that are afoot. At this point, the impact agenda, does indeed seem to be a phenomena that is spreading globally (e.g. Adam et al., 2018).
The paper admittedly has a bias to Western and specifically a UK focus, as the UK context is the one which the author is most familiar with. Within the UK impact has been officially assessed all the way back since 2007. Other countries like Australia started assessing research impact in 2014, Poland in 2018 and in Sweden there a concurrent discussions to do so in the future. Likewise, international organisations like the EU or OECD are now a good decade in utilising impact in their decisions and evaluation of funding. Hence, previous changes in the evaluation regime generated unintended consequences, as for example the rise of the 'publish or perish' culture (Redden, 2008). Arguably, publication and communication represent an integral part of academic pursuit as a collective enterprise, and so does impact. Nevertheless, an overt focus on publication generated negative consequences bordering on outright unethical behaviour in the pursuit of scoring well within these evaluation metrics (e.g. Osterloh & Frey, 2020). Here, the inference is that we ought to be able to expect a similar spread of performance measures and their associated (negative and/or positive?) consequences throughout research institutions globally. This paper takes the wider uncertainty around the cultural consequences of the impact agenda for the research culture as its knowledge gap (Barnett, 2021). Hence, the primary audience represents tourism studies scholars as its purported subject. Nevertheless, the implications apply to all scholars who are compelled to facilitate it, universities and policy makers who manage it, and the public as its recipient. Here tourism unsettled status of a discipline in its own right makes it a fruitful subject, as boundary negotiations normalised in other disciplines are not extant to the same degree and hence representing a better way to understanding the consequences for an end-focused push for the purpose of research, vis-à-vis impact. The research question hence is; what does an explicit research impact focus mean for the [tourism] research ecosystem? This paper has three distinct research objectives. Firstly, outline the background of knowledge production within tourism studies and relate that theoretically to how academic knowledge production functions, as a methodological framing for this conceptual article. Secondly, identify salient vulnerabilities within tourism knowledge production, where an explicit focus on research impact can cause tensions for researchers. Finally, discuss the wider implications for how the research culture is going to respond and identify potential viabilities, as well as how to mitigate adverse developments in order to maximise positive contributions.

Materials and methods for articulating the hitherto unsaid
This section deals with research objective one, namely an elaboration on the background of tourism studies. This is done both in terms of a specific focus on discipline boundary issues within tourism research and the wider national (UK) research context tourism studies scholar find themselves within (background section). Afterwards, the central analytical concept of this paper, namely the research ecosystem, is theoretically introduced. Followed by a short elaboration of how this conceptual paper utilises the idea in its own research method (method section).

Background material: tourism studies and the research assessment
Tourism studies as a field of inquiry is relatively young compared to other more established disciplines. This is attested by the foundational years of its seminal journals (e.g. Annals of Tourism Research -1973, Tourism Recreation Research -1976, Tourism Management -1982. Due to this relatively young status it simply may not have undergone sufficient enough specialisation within an institutional framework to establish itself as a discipline in its own right. Yes, there may be subspecialisation of; heritage, eco-tourism, management, sustainability, marine (etc.) tourism. However, these fields of study lack an overarching unifying paradigm and disciplinary boundary. By way of analogy, geology might be a good comparison (e.g. Guntau, 1978). Here, geological knowledge has surely existed in humankind since time immemorial (e.g. which rocks are good for arrowheads, etc.). Yet, the mining industry and other commercial enterprises didn't take a lot of note of early nineteenth century geology enthusiasts and their interests in fossils. Over time, through institutionalisation, geology training became more formalised at universities, and today knowledge of fossils represents a key technique for oil drilling companies to know in which sedimentary layer they ought to drill for oil. Put differently, the creation of grand theories and specific universities departments is an important step, as not to appear just as an 'importer of social science ideas or a convenient provider of an empirical field for others to harvest' (Gren & Huijbens, 2012, p. 158).
Within tourism studies, we can observe scholars interest displaying a large plethora of different positions, concerns and approaches. Hence in respect to impact, this multitude is also observed. Where scholars question what tourism studies scholars in specific have to contribute (Thomas, 2018), others caution that tourism studies scholarship is losing its relevance in times of post COVID19 (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020), still others call for more engagement with industry beyond the narrow band of research impact measurement (Phillips et al., 2020), whilst others acknowledge that there is a broad schism between practitioners and scholars (Fennell, 2021). These few examples showcase how all these different views arguably makes tourism studies a good subject to understand changes facilitated by evaluation requirements. The reason being, changes to the underlying evaluation structure then potentially ought to manifest differently depending upon the outlook of the specific scholar, meanwhile, such issues might be more normalised (and hence ignored) in more established disciplines.
Almost two decades ago scholars have problematised '[t]he RAE-ification of tourism research' (Tribe, 2003, p. 225), discussing what influences a national assessment regime has upon [tourism] knowledge production. In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) started all the way back in 1989, with subsequent exercises in 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2007, afterwards now replaced with the so called [2014] Research Excellence Framework (REF) (HEFCE, 2007). The REF in itself finished its second iteration in 2021, and hence it is reasonable to assume there will be similar influences from this recent shift to impact-based assessment. For sake of consistency, from here on research impact refers to the codified assessment framework and impact to what is measured. This assessment focus on impact was inspired by discussions in Australia, starting in 2001, on evaluating impact based on so called case studies, which are short documents that make causal claims of how a particular body of research changed society. Nevertheless, the proposal was dropped in 2007 due to a change in the Australian government, with the explanation that it was 'poorly designed, administratively expensive and relie[d] on an impact measure that is unverifiable and ill-defined' (Williams & Grant, 2018, p. 97) only to be re-introduced in 2012. Meanwhile, in the UK the implementation went ahead, codifying both the definition of research impact and the case study assessment approach.

Research methods: a theoretical description of the tourism research ecosystem
Before going more into specifics, the analytical lens of this conceptual paper needs to be introduced in order to better understand the unintended consequences brought forth by the impact agenda. The research ecosystem represents the totality necessary to transform input (research data) into output (facts), including but not limited to; researchers, funders, universities, scholarly societies, publishers, industry stakeholders, lay users, etc. The informal and formal arrangements within this assemblage of individuals, alongside their material and immaterial restrictions then codifies what, how, when, why, who and where research has the legitimacy to operate and make factual claims. The impact agenda represents a new evolutionary pressure upon this ecosystem with its ritualistic account of the by now standardised research impact assessment (Reichard et al., 2020). The relationship between research funding, content and societal contributions is complex. Here, the impact agenda's deliberate political motivations, of Western governments to justify research expenditure creates (un)intended consequences. For example, in (2021), Bandola-Gill and Smith highlight that whilst on the surface the framing of societal benefit may appear innocent and benevolent, it represents a powerful form of control. In 2016, Tribe and Liburd formalised a myriad of different factors influencing tourism studies knowledge production. Figure 1 showcases how this complex interaction of values, discipline and bounded material possibilities influences the knowledge production process for tourism studies, where'[a] large segment AZC is uncharted and is subject to only sporadic research forays' (Tribe, 2006, p. 376). Henceforth, to translate the knowledge gap of this paper technically, the open question is, what aspects of the tourism phenomena (J) is now filtered/modified (K) by this additional evolutionary evaluation pressure of research impact?
The research ecosystem concept is a necessary further development, methodologically and conceptually for three interconnected reasons. Firstly, grasping how an entire process of knowledge production functions in the first place is no easy feat, even within one particular branch of knowledge creation let alone for an entire system. Secondly, methodologically the herein posed research question absolutely qualifies as one of these 'types of broad conceptual questions that cannot be approached empirically without losing their essence' (Xin et al., 2013, p. 67). Hence, from a pure method point of view, it is also conceptually important to distinguish tourism studies power relation to that wider research ecosystem within which it exists academically. For example, within the UK, for the first time with the REF 2014 tourism got an explicit mention on the composite panel of 'Sport and Exercise Science, Leisure and Tourism', which was retained for the 2021 iteration, albeit the numbering of the Unit of Assessment (UoA) changed. The point is, that tourism here only represents one part of composite UoA within a whole system of 34 UoAs, which span the entirety of all academic knowledge production from Medicine, STEM fields, Social Sciences to the Humanities. Finally, whilst useful as a starting point, for discussion on system wide changes emergent properties and unintended consequences become a real factor in themselves. Hence introducing this new analytical concept, that acknowledges the wider and broader context, is important in the sense of recognising the power relation and marginality of tourism. Marginal here is not a value judgement but rather a matter of degree, in that any research discipline is marginal to this entire behemoth of the totality of the research ecosystem. The subsequent categorisation is a further development from previous research.

Observing a changing tourism research ecosystem
This section addresses the second research objective, in that it examines the vulnerabilities for tourism knowledge production situated within a wider changing research ecosystem. In specific this is done: firstly, by reviewing the training of early-career researchers; secondly, by looking at the factors that decide career progression in general; thirdly, by commenting upon the workload and mental health of the researchers; fourthly, by problematising the issues around the measurement of research impact; and finally, by opening up the big question of who has the right to judge what is good impact in the first place?
Early career researchers: normalisation and incomplete pedagogy Thomas Kuhn wrote in his famous work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that revolutions within the research context are invisible in the moment, due to a constant updating of the curriculum that trains the next generation of researchers (Kuhn, [1962(Kuhn, [ ] 1970. Arguably, the impact agenda works in a similar fashion for early career researchers, as it is now part of their doctoral training programmes, being the theme of conferences and receiving endorsement from the wider research ecosystem for reasons elaborated below. Within such a research ecosystem wide normalisation process, it is understandable why early career researchers view research impact as just another compliancy box to tick in an implementation type of fashion (anonymised). Equally, their mentors are busy to evidence their own impact in terms of case studies, part of grant proposals or their personal CVs (e.g. Boland et al., 2020). What in turn is happening to the curriculum is that collaborations with outside stakeholders are being normalised and trivialised to potential ethical problems that can occur within this process (e.g. Baerøe et al., 2022). Furthermore, such 'research impact training' might be facilitated by a cadre of so called impact officers whom were employed by universities to aid with the research impact evaluation process. However, their theoretical knowledge about the nuances of research innovation and societal change might be limited, beyond their understanding of the administrative assessment which was the main purview of the creation of their job position.
Within tourism knowledge production, such a change to the curriculum compel any potential (philosophic) practitioner (Tribe, 2002) into a different academic training regime. In this new regime, the advancement to knowledge, sensibilities for the power dimensions, epistemological and ontological nuances, etc. may still represent part of the training process. However, commentators seldom mention such consideration for early-career researchers when discussing the vulnerabilities introduced by the impact agenda (e.g. Wood, 2017). It is questionable how much resistance individual students are able to muster, when firstly even their teachers whom are critical towards the impact agenda are at least nominally complying with it. Secondly, when scholars tout their own impact or the social benefit of their tourism research, they usually do not acknowledge within these research impact narratives the associated pecuniary reward under the hospice of evaluation systems like the UK REF for such claims. What tensions and idiosyncratic challenges for the stability and functionality of the research ecosystem will arise is hitherto an open question. Granted, researchers always had to contend with the influence of the state, companies and the like within their knowledge production (Kant, [1798(Kant, [ ] 1992, but this particular research impact manifestation and regimentation is an additional novelty.

Career progression: scholarly distinction and survivor bias
The incentive structures around research impact can and do contradict in practice. 'The key issue, therefore, is not whether these paradoxes exist […] but the extent to which they act as a source of stability or, in contrast, transformation' (Shields & Watermeyer, 2020, p. 13). Equally, if the impact agenda, as it has in the UK, is now part of the promotion structure of researchers (Watermeyer & Chubb, 2019), what type of behaviour is rewarded here? A comparative study that evaluated the German 'Excellence Initiative' with a similar push for societal relevance found that the compliance does not equal improved outcomes. They contrasted the German system to Italian institutions' and found no significant rise in research performance, other than an increased publication output and institutional costs to become rule compliant (Civera et al., 2020). In other words, advancing knowledge and creating societal benefit is not a mere managerial task of incentives and disincentives. This pattern is observable in other evaluation systems as well (e.g. Good et al., 2015), all of who proclaim 'excellence', but often in name only. The open question now is what are the blind spots of this new modality of scholarly distinction for the research ecosystem?
The vulnerability is that the research ecosystem in general, and tourism in specific, becomes blind to aspects which cannot easily be measured. Akin to Tribe's model of knowledge production (see Figure 1) for all the existing knowledge around tourism (Circle 1) only a fraction will be codified into journal articles (Circle 3, above the AC line). Likewise, the selection, articulation, judgment and promotion structure around research impact now has built in a survivor bias into it when used as justifications for the advancement of professorship (as done in some universities in the UK). Arguably, these individual tourism studies scholars will be very good at what they do, and presumably this is the reason for why they created the impact selected for the assessment structure. However, the reason for their selection and promotion were not strictly speaking the academic merit of their research credentials but amongst others the utility of their work for the industry and political climate that allowed for their work to be funded in the first place. Such new selection pressures capitulates what counts as academic quality to market forces, in contrast to the strictly speaking internal quality and rigour of the work in question. The presumable consequences is that within this new modality of scholarly distinction, scholars then have to (self-servingly) tout their provided benefit/impact (e.g. Font et al., 2019).

Workload and mental health: 'an alcoholic giving health advice'
It is now almost a cliché within academia of how destructive the 'publish or perish' dictate is for the academic community. A direct consequence is that the workload requirements in terms of publication have steadily risen over the past decades (Warren, 2019). Arguably, mapping one's own research impact, incorporating pathway to impact strategies and compiling an impact case study are workload requirements that did not exist prior to the introduction of the impact agenda. Furthermore, an 'impact literacy' is something that needs to be acquired (Bayley & Phipps, 2019), on top of busy working schedules there are numerous other tasks that can adversely influence the mental health of academics trying to organise their daily working regime. Thereby, '[t]he relentless drive for research excellence has created a culture in modern science [which] cares exclusively about what is achieved and not about how it is achieved' (Nature, 2019, online resource). Hence, the impact agenda represents the ultimate manifestation of such a cultural shift, where researchers merely become cogs in: industrial strategies, grant targets or institutional league table ambitions with little room for disagreement. That such situation is adverse for good mental health is as trivial as it is common. If we take a classical view on knowledge production that the research ecosystem facilitates, viz-a-viz a university is meant for the spiritual and moral training of the nation (von Humboldt, [1810] 1957), it is questionable what type of role model such conduct sets.
Given the requirements of modern academic labour, asking questions such as 'how many manuscripts should I review for journals?' (Dolnicar, 2021, p. 1) is a reasonable thing to do. Likewise, there is something to be said for such activities representing a vital community service for the contemporary and future health of the scholarly (tourism) community. Similarly, one shouldn't forget that there is a vast publishing industry behind journal publication, which is extremely profitable and arguments of community benefit are used to keep academics effort as compliant cogs for these economic interests (Aczel et al., 2021). Furthermore, according to a survey of UK British doctoral students most 'perceive poor mental health as a "normal" part of the PhD process' (Hazell et al., 2021, p. 3). Henceforth, if already existing working relations are causing such detrimental outcomes, this raise questions about two specific vulnerabilities introduced by the impact agenda. Firstly, what additional workload pressures will now be normalised by tourism studies scholars due to the mechanics of research impact assessment, and subsequently rationalised away by peers and managers as individual 'mental health' problems of the ones that do dare to speak up? Secondly, if the existing organisational structures of the modern research ecosystem, are making their own researchers sick, what moral high ground do tourism researchers then have to lecture others on how to behave ethically and responsibly (viz-a-viz social impact, e.g. in questions about sustainable tourism behaviour)? By way of analogy, what legitimacy has the self-described 'alcoholic' (Chubb & Reed, 2018) giving health advice? Admittedly, such issues of legitimacy are not new per se (see Coles et al., 2006), but the research impact dimension does put a new spin on them.

The measurement problem and multiplicity
In general, current assessment models for research impact are too short-sighted to appreciate the deep impact and knock on effects of shared knowledge production (Woolcott et al., 2020), furthermore the very act of measuring impact in the first place creates a different value hierarchy. By measuring research impact and awarding prestige based on it, it is changing the moral landscape of the research ecosystem by making its purpose of societal benefit explicit. Furthermore, as pecuniary rewards are associated with it, now when the individuals' personal agendas clash (e.g. advancement of knowledge, political motivations, career advancement, enculturing students, etc.), whomever wins, will propagate their [personal] impact agenda as 'best practice' bolstering the institutions' bottom line. With such an eventuality, we can no longer speak of research per se, as only the discovery of new knowledge classifies as such. Instead, what we then get is activism masquerading as research in the pursuit of some supposed 'greater good'. Furthermore, technically it is possible to quantify research impact assessment. However, even such quantification doesn't get around that they only ever can measure 'proxies for end outcomes similar to the academic impact indicators [… still needing …] supplementing the quantitative measures with impact case studies' (Sørensen et al., 2022, pp. 128-129). Hence, the distinction between the experiment/basic/applied/research/assessment/ agenda/career goal, etc. has lost their meaning as everything can be operationalised and normalised under an research impact metric.
To exemplify the measurement problem for issues around tourism in specific, let's utilise the power dynamic inherent in discussions around sex tourism. When issues of male sex tourism are discussed; social stigmas for women (Oppermann, 1999), detrimental long-term effects of the male gaze (Ryan & Martin, 2001) or unequal power balance and exploitation of women (Yeoman & Mars, 2012) are all being addressed. Meanwhile, when women participate within sex tourism the discussions revolves around love, empowerment and romance (e.g. Herold et al., 2001). Going as far as stating that the mere suggestion of any parallels between the two phenomena 'does not withstand careful attention to the relations of power, the effects, the meanings and the contexts of the behaviour' (Jeffreys, 2003, p. 236). Whilst scholarly this may indeed be the case, nevertheless, within these articles the authors readily proclaim their feminist allegiance and undeniably such personal values colour how the phenomena in relation to gender, sex and its research impacts are being interpreted. The point, here is not so much as to take a side in these intellectual debates, but rather to point out that when now similarly ideologically coloured researchers claim societal impact, their specific viewpoints then colour how they interpreted and narrate their impact as well. Content wise, tourism studies scholar are aware of these complexities of what constitutes the category of benefit and who has the right to make such judgements. In (1995), Lafant et al. showcase in their seminal work, that any constructed notion of identity via the tourism experience needs to forgo simplifications into; local/global, centre/periphery, modern/traditional, macro/micro, North/South (etc.) dichotomy. Nevertheless, without calling specific names, some tourism studies scholars seem to fall precisely into such a trap when advocating their own impact alongside externally approved agenda (climate change, sustainability, social justice, etc.). Here obvious vulnerability being the methodological exclusion of critical voices from the research impact narrative that contradict the normalised financial incentives of the (tourism) research ecosystem.
Who decides what is good impact(?): researchers as part of a wider Western culture A lot can be said about the adverse influence of forces of managerialism and neoliberalism for the moral landscape of the research ecosystem (Shore & Wright, 1999;. However, an even bigger issue is looming with the impact agenda and subsequent assessment of research impact. Namely, we cannot forget 'that we can't separate characteristics of impact from the process imposed on value and recognise it as such' (Derrick, 2018, p. 160). Which means, that research impactper definitionparticularises benefit/change of research to society. The positive rhetoric notwithstanding, this makes everything related to research impact inherently political. The previous section, raised this as a methodological issue in terms of recognising what constitutes impact in the first place. However, there is an even deeper philosophical problem, who decides what good impact is? The research ecosystem is undeniably imbedded in a wider cultural ecosystem of Western society in general. Research impact claims, by their very nature are social science knowledge claims, as society is the subject being inferred, and here these type of claims 'participate in, reflect upon, and enact the social in a wide range of locations including the state' (Law & Urry, 2004, p. 392). The arising philosophical and sociological issues are no mere irrelevant academic ruminations, as for example when discussing about issues of sustainability multigenerational timespans are easily evoked.
Within tourism studies, a good illustration of this dynamic are the emotions roused by David Edgell's annual list of 'top ten issues of tourism' (see Thomas, 2021). Tourism studies scholars, just like other scholars, often default back on their own status as experts to shut such down attacks. However, an explicit impact agenda makes researchers vulnerable to this type of criticism, because in the context of evaluation they readily affiliated themselves with these agendas. Furthermore, such criticism is then justified, because macro narrativesno matter how warranted on sustainable or moral groundscan clash with micro narratives of the locals (e.g. Cornelisse, 2020). Here, under the rubric of an explicit impact agenda, the researcher now also represents and active agent of change in this clash of moral frameworks. Another example, is provided with the so called attitude behaviour gap, in that: […] the ways in which we research green consumers might be partially responsible for the attitude-behaviour gap […] researchers need to examine whether their research designs are part of the problem. This caution applies not only to tourism researchers, but across the social sciences. (Oates & McDonald, 2014, p. 170). As such, the vulnerability imposed by the research impact assessment, is now not only a problem for how to best measure impact. No, these aspects go far deeper, to the very notion of what makes somebody an expert in the first place. What it means to be rational, what is true and, the implication of (academic) freedom and its role in society and relation to the state. To just mention some of the issues that are important to maintain the functionality of the Western research ecosystem as a whole (Burwood, 2020).

Discussing the light in the dark impact tunnel
The previous section intentionally focused on the vulnerabilities introduced by the impact agenda, now the discussion will contrast these to possible viabilities. In order to address the last research objective, the discussion will focus in specific on; the short, medium and long-term consequences of the research impact assessment regime, before concluding with the limitations and a summary of the here raised conceptual arguments (see following sections).
The vulnerabilities and viabilities all the way from the trivial to the profound At a local level and short-term level, presumably tourism studies scholars will be further inundated with so called key performance indicators that now have an impact framing, that in a supposedly helpful and proactive manner are there to log the created impact of the scholars. As aforementioned, the vulnerability exists in that such measurement is carried out by individuals unfamiliar with the minutia of a specific tourism research domain, and henceforth in their apparently 'helpful' attempt creating more damage than utility (Wróblewska, 2021). At the same time, such naiveté about the subject dynamics also offers a viability. In the sense, if the researcher takes a proactive role; patiently, gregariously and pedagogically explaining the dynamics to any potential auditor, alliances can be forged that may extend well-beyond any immediate measurement activity. Thereby, not only do scholars' get the possibility to showcase their own impact activities, but also get to positively influence both the training of other researchers and academic staff, in order to update their conceptualisations of the risks with an explicit research impact focus. Here, acting as a role model of how we wished others behaved is always a good strategy. Furthermore, whilst the relationship building that happens around the research impact accounting does represent a forum, early career researchers need to be actively included as they, due to their junior status, are otherwise excluded from the mutual learning.
At a national and medium term level, policy makers, businesses and other stakeholders most likely won't be able to resist the temptation to utilise the measurements of research impact as arguments for their own specific goals. As aforementioned, whilst this does represent a vulnerability for scholars to have their work misinterpreted and used to justify certain outcome that they might not be comfortable with, it does also represent a viable opportunity. In that, from such a position of interest, then possibly 'successful' [judged according to the research impact logic] tourism studies scholar then can make the case for wider issues relating to research around tourism in general. For example, one could raise issues of precarity of tourism studies scholars' employment and potential ethical conflicts of interest (Thomas, 2020). Thereby, the temporarily gained metaphorical 'fifteen minutes of fame' is not wasted on mere self-aggrandisement, but represents a platform. In general, for all scholars conceptualising all impact activities as part of the research process represents a viable avenue to retain their research integrity. In the sense, that such exemplars would then echo the same complaints and issues previously raised on an individual and local level. Hence, the viability of the individual behaviour for the collective [tourism] research ecosystem, is that they generated further data points for the individual struggling [tourism] scholars to point to instead of having their concerns dismissed.
At a global and long-term level, the two previous actions ought to represent a bulwark against the vulnerabilities introduced by what we could call an impact or starve paradigm. Akin to the 'publish or perish' pressures, [tourism studies] scholars can then curate the equivalent of predatory journal list, create a vocabulary of ethically questionable conduct (e.g. 'salami slicing', 'overt selfcitation', 'buddy referencing', etc.) that allows for the better identification of negative behaviour patterns in the pursuit of impact. Here, the ambition of [tourism studies] scholars ought to be to contribute to the public debate on issues of post-truth, postmodernism and the public understanding of science in general, linking their research interest to these wider concerns. If for nothing else, as the mechanism to address and solve any problems (i.e. research) ought to be more important for the [tourism] research ecosystem in general, as compared to any specific challenge raised. Potentially, the impact agendafor all its woesmay also represent a viable opportunity to take the ideas like that of worldmaking (Hollinshead, 2009) seriously.
In order to makes explicit what hitherto was largely taken for granted. After all, whose research impact are we referring to [?] is as much a technical as a philosophical question.

Limitations
When it comes to predicting the long-term consequences to either the phenomena of tourism (see Scott & Gössling, 2015) or the future of the [tourism] research ecosystem as a whole, there is always a certain degree of uncertainty. Another obvious limitation of the hitherto presented conceptual research is that it departed very much from a UK context, while in other countries and cultural contexts the here raised challenges to scholarly expertise might manifest differently. Likewise, there might be a difference in timelines. In the sense, as different evaluation regimes around the world have introduced research impact evaluation at different times and forms, some of the here mentioned aspects may not have yet occurred or may have already found institutional solutions. Finally, as this paper represents a conceptual piece it is very much influenced by the author's own area of interests and limits of understanding. Hence, the paper could have been framed through the lens of posthumanism (see Cohen, 2019) or academic capitalism (see Hall, 2010). However, these areas touch upon wider issues that exist beyond the current expertise of the author and henceforth have not been dealt with in this paper. Hence the paper restricted itself to the potential of epistemic corruption specifically brought forth by the impact agenda (see Kidd et al., 2021). In general, inquiries on the conditions when tourism studies scholars lose/retain their status as experts would represent areas for future scholarship.

Summarising the vulnerabilities and viabilities
To answer the research question of this conceptual paper, an explicit impact focus does seem to mean new challenges for the academic integrity of scholars, interested in issues around tourism and beyond. Furthermore, the [tourism] research ecosystem seems to be changing in such a fashion that scholarsif they want to remain an active part of Higher Education institutions cannot ignore the impact agenda, at least as far as scholars at western academic institutions espousing some form of research impact evaluation. Whilst there are seemingly undeniable vulnerabilities created, in terms of early career training, survivor bias, academic promotion, research impact measurement and authority of who gets to decide what counts as beneficial impact, there also seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. In that, the impact agenda offers a forum where [tourism] scholars can address overarching issues of worldmaking, which within other contexts are usually ignored and normalised. Whether such an opportunity and strategy is enough to resist the market forces introduced into the [tourism] research ecosystem and for scholars to maintain their integrity remains to be seen. Only time will tell, if the light at the end of the research impact tunnel were those of genuine rays of hope, or just that of the oncoming train.

Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge Prof Keith Hollinshead's contribution to this paper (posthumously). Firstly, the general discussion about the papers themes greatly improved the clarity and ease of presentation of the here provided conceptual argument. Secondly, the rhetorical framing of vulnerabilities and viabilities allowed for a nuanced argumentation of both negative and positive aspects of the argument. Lastly, the role model of the professors style of inquiry ensured that the argument adhered to scholarly rigor and not merely the opinion of the author. The latter distinction is a tremendous skill and difficult thing to achieve in practice. Hence, the author is immensely grateful for the research impact in a real sense that manifested here, regardless of how difficult it would be to quantify under a impact rubric.

Disclosure statement
The author reports no potential conflict of interest.

Notes on contributor
Rene Brauer is a visiting scholar at the University of Eastern Finland and employed as a research impact officer at the University of Hull. He has taught philosophy and sociology of science and is currently writing a book on the influence of impact evaluation on the research ecosystem. He also leads the scholarly network of the Bacchus Institute of Science, which provides newsletters on all things research impact, organizes scholarly reading groups and designs research projects, all to better understand the impact of research impact.