Section 5: What methods do researchers use to maximise societal impact?

What methods do researchers use to maximise societal impact?

Introduction

Maximising the societal impact of research was identified by both our survey respondents and the researchers we interviewed as time-consuming work. To the extent that it often requires more time than they generally feel able, or permitted, to give.

It’s therefore perhaps not surprising that the results of our survey revealed the main routes taken by researchers to maximise impact were primarily academic channels – for example, presenting at conferences, sharing research on scientific social networks, or publishing their papers open access.

The researchers we interviewed, on the other hand, told a somewhat different story. These researchers had all been chosen due to the impact they’ve achieved. And the means they identified for maximising their impact invariably involved significant communication and networking with those outside the academic sphere. Activities ranged from co-creating research with their intended audiences, through to carrying out significant media work, and – in one instance – setting up a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Research Insights

We conducted a survey with over 9,000 researchers to understand how societal impact is viewed by academics across different countries, disciplines and career stages. This is what we found…

Conferences were the most popular route for increasing societal impact, followed by scientific social networking sites.

Respondents reported a wide variety of activities that they carried out to increase the societal impact of their research. The average respondent carried out between 3 and 4 of these activities:

Open access was seen as having the greatest effect on increasing societal impact

Researchers were asked which of the methods they used was likely to have the greatest effect.Researchers saw the greatest effect on increasing societal impact from channels that increase accessibility and reach.Researchers provided open text responses on why they felt a particular activity was more effective in increasing societal impact. These point to three main reasons:

Reach: enables the researchers to reach more people, or a broader audience, or specific groups.

Accessibility: easier for potential readers to access due to discoverability or free access.

Effect and influence: the activity makes the findings easier to understand or disseminate.

Most researchers spend 10% or less of their time on activities to increase societal impact.

Interview insights from academics based in the Netherlands

We carried out a series of interviews with researchers from a variety of disciplines who have made a societal impact with their research.
One of the most common themes in the interviews was the importance of considering societal impact from the outset of a research project and engaging with the people you intend to influence from the very beginning…

[You need to] leave your ivory tower and connect with society. If you want to make a difference for a specific community or target group, get to know them so you can really understand what they need. And importantly, you need to see them as equals. Those people know best what works for them, so you need to get to know them if you really want to have an impact.

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

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It’s almost co-creation of the research. So, from the start, it’s vital to establish some contact within the organisations you’re wanting to work with. The aim should be to have frequent conversations about the research, the questions that you want to answer, the structure and setup of the research and how you're going to communicate about results.

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

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From the very beginning, when we think of a research question, we get input from people in practice and from people that the research may impact to understand what the research question should be.

Jutka Halberstadt, assistant professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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Activities undertaken by the researchers we spoke to were incredibly varied and tended to differ by discipline and intended audience…

I feel that it’s my role as an academic, our role in academia, to use the knowledge we’ve gained from our research to better inform broader audiences. That's why I give public lectures. I tweet in simple terms so anyone can follow the points I want to make. I talk to journalists and I'm on TV and radio and in the newspapers. I feel I have a responsibility to use my understanding of the complexities of my particular research area to explain them in an accessible manner.

Dr Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law, international criminal justice and human rights at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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We made a strategic decision to publish the results first in Dutch journals that we knew policymakers would read. And it wasn’t as easy as I initially thought it would be because I had to translate the complex academic papers into something that was methodologically still complex, but which was pitched in a more accessible manner.

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

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[I took part in] an exhibition by Italian design duo Formafantasma. It’s about the use of timber in design, including how it relates to global processes such as increased carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation. I'm an expert on the political regulation of some of these elements so the artists approached me and asked me to be part of it. Most people who go to see this exhibition won’t know me – my work is far too technical. But through the artists, I suddenly had a new route to reach people and from that more opportunities have followed.

Professor Philipp Pattberg, director of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute (ASI)

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The researchers we spoke to were almost entirely in agreement about the time commitment required to make an impact. And – in some cases – the lack of recognition for it…

I'm not managing that balance [between societal impact and academia]. It's really hard to do. And that's because our academic system has not yet matured in a way that it knows how to recognise societal impact work. In very practical terms that means that my boss tells me that everything I do, in terms of societal impact, is really important. But it doesn’t count towards my academic work. It needs to fit into three per cent of my time and the rest is a ‘hobby’.

Dr Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law, international criminal justice and human rights at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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We can’t think that to promote technology transfer, knowledge transfer, the day will become 28 hours long. At some point, a decision needs to be made at a strategic level that we’re going to have a more balanced approach to what we ask from researchers – in terms of how they’re assessed, for example. It’s something we say all the time to our academic entrepreneurs – it’s not about what to do, but about what not to do, what to cut.

Davide Iannuzzi, university research chair professor in experimental physics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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When you have requirements heaped on you, you have limited time to dedicate to considering how you’re going to have an impact outside academia. Early career researchers are super stressed because they’re being told they need to have an impact but they also have to meet all these other requirements. We’ve added another requirement, but without taking something else away.

Professor Philipp Pattberg, director of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute (ASI)

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