Towards societal impact: How do researchers maximize relevance?
Societal impact refers to the effect of research beyond academia, or the effect or change experienced by society from that research. Societal impact is particularly relevant where research relates to one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is the second blog in a series exploring the results of a survey with more than 9,000 researchers exploring societal relevance, as part of a project Springer Nature is undertaking with the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU). In the first blog we looked at how important societal impact is to researchers. In this blog we explore what actions researchers take in maximizing their impact.
Written by Mithu Lucraft, Director, Outreach and Open Research
When do researchers think about societal impact?
As we noted in our first blog, nearly half of respondents are asked by their funder to consider societal impact when applying for a grant “always” or “most of the time”. This is consistent with nearly half of respondents (48%) who said that they consider societal impact before carrying out their research, although only 14% said they discussed intended societal impact with their funder. A large proportion of respondents discussed the intended impact with their co-authors or supervisor. Researchers in the Netherlands were more likely to consider societal impact than the global average, with 57% discussing intended social impact.
Where do researchers publish their work?
When considering societal impact, 40% of the 9,000 respondents to our 2019 survey said their choice of journal was influenced by the intended societal impact of their research. There was only 13% who said their choice of journal was not at all affected. As we noted in our earlier post, there were some communities which saw societal impact as more important than the global average, and here too we see the same communities more likely to select a journal based on the intended societal impact. Researchers in India were most likely to be influenced by intended societal impact (60%), respondents in medicine were most likely to be influenced (43%) compared with other disciplines. It is worth noting that the question we asked specifically concerned journal publication, which may be less relevant in some disciplines where the primary research output is a scholarly monograph, such as social sciences.
What activities are undertaken following publication to increase societal impact?
Respondents reported a wide variety of activities that they carried out to increase the societal impact of their work, with the average respondent carrying out between three and four of these activities. The highest proportion (58%) presented at a conference to increase impact, and this was even higher for researchers in the Netherlands where more than three quarters of respondents (76%) presented at a conference. “A conference gives very good opportunities to engage in discussions with researchers in the same field and potential end users of the results (industry developing new technology, clinicians)”, said one respondent.
What effort goes into this activity?
As noted above, for the most part researchers are using channels in combination to achieve greater societal impact. More than half of respondents (56%) said they spent less than 10% of their time on such activities, with only 8% saying they spent no time at all on generating impact and a further 19% who spent upwards of 20% of their time on this. Those spending more time were more likely to be engaging in multimedia such as podcasts, sending emails to a mailing list, or other major undertakings - from speaker engagements to writing a book.
What role does open access (OA) play in increasing societal impact?
The third most popular activity researchers highlighted to increase societal impact was to publish OA. This was again even higher for respondents from the Netherlands, where 56% chose OA compared with 42% globally selecting this option. What is particularly interesting is that when we then asked respondents about which of the activities they had undertaken was most effective, OA comes top, with 20% of respondents claiming that OA had the greatest effect on increasing the societal impact of their research compared with only 10% who thought presenting at a conference had the greatest impact. This response is something our project with VSNU aims to explore further. Promoting the research on a scientific social networking site was the second most effective method to achieve societal impact.
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 they chose a particular channel:
- Reach: the activity enables the researchers to reach more people or a broader audience (for example social or broadcast media), or specific groups (for example conferences).
- Accessibility: the activity makes it easier for potential readers to access due to discoverability or free access (for example open access publication).
- Effect and influence: the activity makes the findings easier to understand or disseminate (such as direct engagement with audience via public engagement and conferences).
What effort goes into this activity?
As noted above, for the most part researchers are using channels in combination to achieve greater societal impact. More than half of respondents (56%) said they spent less than 10% of their time on such activities, with only 8% saying they spent no time at all on generating impact and a further 19% who spent upwards of 20% of their time on this. Those spending more time were more likely to be engaging in multimedia such as podcasts, sending emails to a mailing list, or other major undertakings - from speaker engagements to writing a book.
Key takeaways from part two
The majority of researchers undertake a number of activities to maximize their societal impact, with their choices of engagement heavily influenced by the target audience and impact they wish to achieve. For the majority, although conferences are most popular, open access comes out as the most effective method of achieving societal impact for its accessibility and discoverability. In part three we will explore how researchers measure their effectiveness when it comes to societal impact.
Click here to read more about the project and find further slides and raw data from the survey.
At the heart of this agenda are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Supporting researchers to achieve that reach is therefore a key part of Springer Nature’s SDG Programme, aiming to connect researchers who are tackling some of these global grand challenges with the practitioners who can build on these insights.
Mithu Lucraft has worked in academic publishing since 2004. A passion for storytelling combined with a lasting commitment to scholarly communications has led her through a variety of Marketing and Communications roles, including at Oxford University Press, Sage Publishing and Palgrave Macmillan. At Springer Nature she is responsible for promoting open books and research data services; institutional engagement with open research; as well as wider researcher content engagement strategy.
