  Impact of academic research onto the non-academic world is of increasing
importance as authorities seek return on public investment. Impact opens new
opportunities for what are known as "professional services": as scientometrical
tools bestow some with confidence they can quantify quality, the impact agenda
brings lay measurements to evaluation of research. This paper is partly
inspired by the famous "two cultures" discussion instigated by C.P. Snow over
60 years ago. He saw a chasm between different academic disciplines and I see a
chasm between academics and professional services, bound into contact through
competing targets. This paper draws on my personal experience and experiences
recounted to me by colleagues in different universities in the UK. It is aimed
at igniting discussions amongst people interested in improving the academic
world and it is intended in a spirit of collaboration and constructiveness. As
a professional services colleague said, what I have to say "needs to be said".
It is my pleasure to submit this paper to the Festschrift devoted to the 60th
birthday of a renowned physicist, my good friend and colleague Ihor Mryglod.
Ihor's role as leader of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics in Lviv has
been essential to generating some of the impact described in this paper and
forms a key element of the story I wish to tell.
