Section 6: What are the motivations behind wanting to have societal impact?

What are the motivations behind wanting to have societal impact?

Introduction

Through both our survey and interviews with researchers, we were able to identify three key strands to researchers’ motivations for wanting to have a societal impact:

Personal passion – their own individual belief that they would like to make a difference in the world through their research
Sense of duty – many researchers felt that as their research was funded by taxpayers' money, they had an obligation to ensure that society benefited from the research
Financial requirement – nearly half of the researchers in our survey were asked about societal impact in their grant applications.

In our interviews, the personal reasons and feeling of obligation were the most strongly felt. The researchers we spoke to were clearly passionate about the importance of the societal impact of research and the personal satisfaction they gained from it.

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…

Researchers view societal impact as a moral responsibility.

The majority of researchers are asked by funders to consider potential societal impacts

Nearly half (44%) of respondents globally said that their funder asks them ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ to consider the societal impact of their research when applying for a grant.

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.

Personal motivation was clearly important to the researchers we spoke to…

On a personal level, I derive a lot of my motivation and enthusiasm for doing this from the belief that it matters – beyond the world of academia. Having an impact isn’t in my job description – I don't really get specific time allocated to work on having an impact. But this is something I care about and that's why I’ve made it happen – because I want to invest in that.

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

Read the interview.

For me, societal impact is crucial, vital. It's what I get out of bed for in the morning, not the impact factor publications or more citations in higher-rated journals. It's the societal impact and the changes I can see are needed.

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

Read the interview.

And the sense of obligation was also clear – particularly when referring to taxpayers’ as the source of research funding

I think we have a mandate to maximise how our research is used in an impactful way. That doesn't mean that each individual researcher has to go through the entire process of taking their research through to societal use. Some research topics are simply not suitable for that. But we must create a culture where all researchers seriously ask themselves: “Can taxpayers make use of what I have discovered?” If we don’t do that, maybe we should question whether we are really fulfilling the mandate we have received.

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

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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. 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

Read the interview.