Societal Impact Toolkit

Towards Societal ImpactA toolkit to maximize the reach of your researchA best practice guide to help researchers maximize their impact including survey findings, interviews, and suggested reading.Contents

Towards societal impact: a toolkit for early career researchers

IntroductionIn 2019, in partnership with the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), we set out to investigate how researchers consider societal impact – looking at everything from the activities they undertake to the factors that motivate them.The results of a research survey we carried out in 2019, as well as case study interviews with researchers based in the Netherlands, form the basis of this toolkit.The toolkit has been created to help you understand how other researchers view societal impact and how they’ve been successful in creating it. It’s filled with plenty of advice and insights from our researcher interviews, as well as further reading resources to help you find out more about societal impact and how to create it.Background to the project and partnershipThis project forms part of a wider strategic initiative with VSNU to explore the role of open research in accelerating progress on global societal challenges.Through the three projects that form this initiative, we seek to contribute to a better, more sustainable society through open research. Therefore, the results of all projects will be released in open standards and further, made openly accessible to all stakeholders on the project website. Deliverables include: data sets, methodology outlines, trend reports, visualisations, and much more.
About our researcher surveyOur survey was conducted in June 2019, with more than 9,000 active researchers responding from across a broad range of regions, career stages, subject fields and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of interest.The researchers were asked a broad range of questions related to societal impact of research – from what importance they placed on it to how they measured it. The results are discussed and linked to throughout this toolkit.
Who did we interview for the case studies?Our case study interviews were conducted with researchers based at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Maastricht University. The interviewees were from a variety of disciplines and ranged in seniority from a postdoctoral researcher to tenured professors.Below you can find a full list of our interviewees with links to their individual case studies:

Professor Melanie Ehren, research chair at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and director of LEARN! Research Institute.

Professor Philipp Pattberg, director of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute (ASI) – a platform for interdisciplinary research collaboration among all faculties at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Floris Peters, postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University and winner of the 2018 FASOS Valorisation Prize.

Pim de Boer, senior strategic policy advisor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Amsterdam University Medical Center, and former pathobiologist.

Jutka Halberstadt, assistant professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the Dutch national project manager of Care for Obesity.

Professor Mai Chin A Paw, university research chair professor at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

Professor Davide Iannuzzi, university research chair professor in experimental physics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and author of the book Entrepreneurship for Physicists.

Professor Mark Post, vascular physiology professor at Maastricht University and – famously – the man who introduced the world to the first ever burger created in a lab.

Dr Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law, international criminal law and human rights law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). Also founder and director of the Netherlands branch of the NGO, PILPG.

Professor Michel Dumontier, distinguished professor of data science and founder and director of the Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University.

Professor Frank Cörvers, scientific director at the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (SBE) and part of the Human Capital in the Region research programme at the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).

Professor Hans Nelen, key domain chair in criminal law and criminology at the Faculty of Law, Maastricht University.

Acknowledgments Thank you to the researchers who took the time to share their wealth of knowledge related to their experiences with societal impact:Melanie Ehren; Philipp Pattberg; Floris Peters; Pim de Boer; Jutka Halberstadt; Mai Chin A Paw; Davide Iannuzzi; Mark Post; Marieke de Hoon; Michel Dumontier; Frank Cörvers; Hans Nelen.Thank you to the researchers who participated in our workshops and shared their societal impact plans:Manou Anselma; Damla Diriker; Bethany Houghton; Emma van den Eynde; Jan Willem Grijpma; Kate Negacz; Leandra Koetsier; Timna Bressgott; Stefan Flagner; Sophie Hubalek; Marie Labussière; Laura Jackisch; Eslam Nofal. Thanks to our partners: Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU); Dutch University Libraries and the National Library consortium (UKB).Toolkit developed by: Kamal Arkbright; Mithu Lucraft; Lucy Frisch; Roza Sakellaropoulou.