Education Excellence: Impact Statement

Your impact statement forms part of your VC award application, alongside your 3 minute story and your endorsement from your Faculty, Portfolio, Campus or Division. Your impact statement should provide a concise yet comprehensive picture of your educational excellence and impact, complementing the narrative presented in your 3 minute story and substantiating your claims. It will be assessed by a panel in combination with your story submission.

The following guidance is aimed at helping you fill out each section. Word counts are given on the template.

Title

Choose something that succinctly but clearly captures what your story is about. It is likely to be most closely related to the “hook” element and is important in hooking in the reviewer and helping to make your application memorable and different from the rest.

Award Category

See VC Award Guidelines for the different VC award categories that you can apply for. Choosing a category that fits your story is important, since this determines how your application will be judged. For citations or teaching excellence, highlight depth and evolution of practice. For leadership or programs, emphasise systems-level thinking and scale.

Equally, it is important to craft your story so that it aligns in a compelling way with the focus of your chosen category. The key to a successful application is aligning your story and evidence of impact with the intent, criteria, and scope of impact that relates to your category. A compelling application tells a story of intentional, evidence-based, and impactful educational work. Choosing the right award category isn’t just about eligibility—it’s about framing your work in the way that makes its value most visible to others.

Before selecting an award category, reflect on:

What is the essence of your work or initiative? (think back to your hook)
Who benefits most—students, colleagues, the institution, external partners?
Is the main strength of your case in teaching practice, innovation, leadership, collaboration, or external engagement?
How sustained is the work, and what evidence of impact can you show?

The following summaries might help you to choose the most appropriate category for your achievements.

Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning

Best for	Individuals or small teams focused on innovative or excellent teaching or student support within a unit or discipline.
Narrative focus	Depth of engagement, innovation, and impact on student learning
Scope	Localised or discipline-specific contributions with demonstrable student impact.
Tips	A strong application will clearly articulate the specific contribution and its outcomes for learners

Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Best for	Individuals or teams introducing new practices or tools that transform teaching or assessment.
Narrative focus	Innovation as a lever for improvement and change.
Scope	Can be local or broader—but must clearly show how the innovation has improved student learning or engagement.
Tips	Emphasise the novelty of the approach, rationale for the change, and measurable impact.

Teaching Excellence

Best for	Experienced educators with a track record of inspiring, effective, and wide-reaching teaching practices.
Narrative focus	Holistic excellence—across teaching, resources, impact, and leadership.
Scope	Broad impact—beyond a single unit or cohort.
Tips	You must be able to integrate diverse forms of evidence and show how your teaching has evolved and scaled across a broader range of activities or contexts.

Educational Leadership

Best for	Formal or informal leaders who have shaped teaching practices, culture, or strategy at scale.
Narrative focus	Leadership that is transformative, influential, and sustained over time.
Scope	Faculty, university-wide, national or international.
Tips	Focus on the systems or structures you've helped shift, your influence beyond your own teaching, and recognition from peers.

Industry and Community Education Programs

Best for	Educators working in genuine partnerships with external stakeholders to produce educational value.
Narrative focus	Collaborative innovation, mutual benefit, and real-world outcomes.
Scope	Programs co-developed and delivered with industry/community partners.
Tips	Show alignment with external needs, evidence of joint benefit, and sustainability or reach of the program.

Programs That Enhance Learning

Best for	Team-based initiatives that span units, year levels, or services and enhance learning at scale.
Narrative focus	Programmatic impact, student experience, and inclusive outcomes.
Scope	Institutional or multi-disciplinary programs; must be broader than a single unit.
Tips	Choose the subcategory that best aligns (e.g., WIL, curriculum innovation, diversity), and show long-term value and reach.

Synopsis

Your synopsis should offer a succinct, compelling snapshot of your initiative—what it is, why it matters, and how it has made a difference. It sets the tone for your application and should align with the core message (or ‘hook’) of your story. Aim for clarity, precision, and impact.

1. Start with your 'hook' (1–2 sentences)

Clearly express what sets your initiative apart. What’s the distinctive idea, approach, or innovation at its heart? This should grab the reader’s attention and anchor the rest of your narrative.

2. Explain your context (1-3 sentences)

Briefly describe the setting in which your initiative took place:

What discipline or field is it in?
What level are the students (e.g. undergraduate, postgraduate)?
How many students are involved?
What teaching or learning challenge or opportunity were you addressing?

This helps reviewers understand the scope, relevance, and significance of your work.

3. Define your approach (1–2 sentences)

Summarise what you did and how:

What methods, strategies, or activities did you use?
How was your initiative implemented in your specific context?
What makes it innovative or distinctive?

4. Outline your educational philosophy (1–2 sentences)

Briefly state the core values or beliefs that underpin your work:

What principles guide your teaching or educational leadership?
What assumptions or commitments shaped the design of your initiative?

This does not need to be heavily theoretical. In the “linking to literature” section of your impact statement, you will connect your approach to educational literature.

5. Summarise your impact (1–2 sentences)

Conclude with a high-level summary of your initiative’s effects:

What changes or improvements have resulted?
How has it affected student learning, engagement, or experience?
What evidence of success can you highlight?

Explanation of evidence

Write a short explanation that clearly demonstrates how the evidence provided in the impact statement (see below) aligns with and supports the narrative presented in the 3 minute story.

Your response should:

Briefly clarify the impact and outcomes of your work.
Explain the significance of the evidence. Highlight how the data validates or reinforces the outcomes, impacts, or successes described in the narrative. This may be better as an overview rather than explaining each piece of evidence separately.
Provide context. Clarify why the evidence is relevant and meaningful, ensuring reviewers can easily understand how it substantiates your story.
Connect evidence to the narrative. Make explicit links with the different pieces of evidence to specific claims or themes discussed in your story.

Your goal is to create a clear and logical connection between the evidence in the impact statement and the claims in the narrative within the story.

Links to the literature

Write a short explanation of how your approach and the issues you discuss in your story relate to educational literature.

Your response should:

Engage deeply with the literature. Discuss how your approach aligns with or diverges from established theories, frameworks, or findings in the field.
Highlight tensions or contradictions. Identify areas where your approach may challenge or conflict with existing literature, and explain how you reconcile or address these differences.
Avoid superficial citations. Rather than simply including references to support your ideas, provide a thoughtful analysis that demonstrates your understanding of the literature and its relevance to your work.

Your goal is to show a balanced and nuanced understanding of how your approach fits within the broader scholarly conversation in education.

Evidence of impact

Include up to 3 pages of evidence of impact. See our guidance on forms of evidence for ideas on what you might include and how to select and present it. For VC award applications, your focus is on impact on your students, the broader Monash student and educator community and may also include impact beyond Monash, including national and international impact. Remember that reviewers for some categories will consider the extent to which impact has been achieved over a sustained period (see the main VC award category guidance for more details).

Reference list

Include references cited in previous sections (which will primarily and, perhaps, exclusively, be in the “links to the literature” section).

No word limit for reference list.