April 2022
This month’s reports summarises four articles that in/directly relate to the impact of universities. The first paper raises questions about the ethics of research impact and how to do that in practice (Bærøe et al., 2021). The second study discusses the tension between categorisation and utility created by research impact assessment (Lauronen, 2022). The third piece of research outlined the pathways to impact for research in the philosophy of science (Plaisance, 2021). The last item represents book that explores the created tension between competitive accountability and public legitimacy created by the impact agenda (Watermeyer, 2019).
[1]) They draw attention to that, whilst the intention to have good societal impact maybe self-evident what hitherto seems to have been missed is how that category is construed. In specific in research practice many ethical challenges arise, and they suggest a framework of how to address the arising issues in practice. Specifically, they suggest a multidisciplinary approach for bio-ethics both in terms of funding committees and research conduct. Introducing approaches and insights from stakeholders, social sciences and humanities research to come to a consensus of what constitutes a good research outcome.
[2]) The paper departs from a Finish context, and analyses policy material between 2003 and 2018 alongside interviews with 14 policy advisors in terms of evaluating research impact. Five different frames of references could be identified that determine how research impact is viewed, these were; an emphasis on impact governance, operationalization of impact, politicization of research utilization, guiding arrangements, and social impact of the social sciences. A key finding is that these different frameworks of reference can be mutually exclusive, leading to uncertainties in communication and what issues arise within the context of research impact.
[3]) The study interviewed 35 philosophers of science, in relation to how they think their research had an influence. They all reported that face-to-face engagement was the most important and effective pathway to impact. Likewise, the engagement with non-specialist and outside philosophical venues is not what philosophers are traditionally trained to do. They conclude that there needs to be an emphasis on unifying the potential strategies for individuals as well as for the discipline as a whole. In specific they argue for; more flexible and broader criteria for performance reviews, better valuing collaborative work, including training for early career researchers of how to build networks and better strategies of individuals can track and record their own activities.
[4]) Watermeyer argues in his book that the onset of impact measures, alongside already established research metrics, has caused somewhat of an identity crisis amongst academics. However, academics themselves are accomplices in the onset of this particular crisis as they relish the urge to perform in the spotlight and utilise these very metrics to argue for their status of expertise. Yet, the problem is not the scrutiny itself, but rather what that scrutiny is geared towards and what type of conduct it promotes. He argues for socially active scholarship, which is engaged with the issues of the day but also aware of the shortcomings created by the system. Whilst the book is somewhat short on potential solutions, it does a good job at identifying the problem and stressing its significance.
[1] Bærøe, K., Kerasidou, A., Dunn, M., & Teig, I. L. (2022). Pursuing impact in research: towards an ethical approach. BMC Medical Ethics, 23(1), 1-9.
[2] Lauronen, J. P. (2022). Tension in Interpretations of the Social Impact of the Social Sciences: Walking a Tightrope Between Divergent Conceptualizations of Research Utilization. SAGE Open, 12(2), 21582440221089967.
[3] Plaisance, K. S., Michaud, J., & McLevey, J. (2021). Pathways of influence: understanding the impact of philosophy of science in scientific domains. Synthese, 199(1), 4865-4896.
[4] Watermeyer, R. (2019). Competitive accountability in academic life: The struggle for social impact and public legitimacy. Edward Elgar Publishing.
