Moves to measure the ‘impact’ of research on society - University World News

" ... UK academics are now encouraged to meld their research with the needs of the outside world through the introduction of a measurement of the effects, or ‘impact’, of academic research on wider society in the upcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment exercise. This could provide them with a considerable incentive to make their research more accessible in terms of both language and publication methods. There is also a significant advantage for cash-strapped universities as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will be allocating 20% of REF funding to this question of illustrating external impact ... The Impact of Social Sciences project, based at the London School of Economics, in 2009 began to investigate the impact of academic work on government, business and civil society.  Our initial impression was that many academics, particularly those in the social sciences, were missing a key stepping stone to creating an external impact, as much of their work was relatively closed off to those practitioners outside universities... We found that social scientists did not use online depositories where full text articles could be accessed without subscription as regularly as their STEM peers, nor did they tend to update online profiles. When interviewed about this, many felt that a lack of knowledge about copyright restrictions placed on them by publishers was to blame.  Our research has found a correlation between being cited within academia and being referenced outside of it. So it appears that excellent academic work is also the work that is likely to create external impacts.  Few external research user groups that we found had ready access to subscription journals. By supporting institutional online depositories, universities are ensuring that those searching for expertise in a particular area are more likely to find research that is useful, relevant and timely – all of which could mark the beginning of an impactful relationship... There is growing recognition that academic blogging – providing short and accessible discussions of key ideas and research – can be a powerful tool in engaging with policy-makers and practitioners in a non-technical language... A team from the World Bank highlighted the role that subject-specific blogs had in alerting those with an interest in a particular policy area to recent academic work. McKenzie and Özler showed a huge increase in the number of abstract views and downloads an academic paper received following a mention on a high-profile blog such as Freakonomics or Marginal Revolution ... There was a disconnect in terms of the work that academics felt previous assessment exercises or prevailing wisdom pushed them towards: single-author, middle-of-the-discipline articles destined preferably for highly ranked journals. However, we find that multi-authored, cross-disciplinary works are those that are of greatest interest to policy-makers and create the most external impacts... Yet responses on social media are immediate and often forthright. These can be difficult to deal with and universities will need to support their staff in handling these issues. In addition, those who blog about their research before results or findings are finalised may find that original supporters are disappointed if final judgments go a different way.  The challenge here is to persuade both academics and those within higher education management that there is a distinct value in being more open with methods of production and dissemination of research..."