IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/scippl/v49y2022i4p609-620..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How universities influence societal impact practices: Academics’ sense-making of organizational impact strategies
[Between Relevance and Excellence? Research Impact Agenda and the Production of Policy Knowledge]

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan P L de Jong
  • Corina Balaban

Abstract

Societal impact of academic research has become a central concern of contemporary science policies. As key players in the higher education sector, universities play a crucial role in translating policy into organizational strategies, which then have the potential to shape academics’ practices. This article investigates the influence that universities may have on academics’ impact practices. We employ an analytical framework that combines a novel method for studying university impact strategies, sense-making theory, and insights from literature on impact. Our data consist of interviews with sixteen philosophers and anthropologists working across four universities in the Netherlands and the UK. We find that, in response to organizational goals and Human Resource Management policies, academics report changing their impact practices. We call for universities to use their influence responsibly in order to enable a broad range of impact practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan P L de Jong & Corina Balaban, 2022. "How universities influence societal impact practices: Academics’ sense-making of organizational impact strategies [Between Relevance and Excellence? Research Impact Agenda and the Production of Pol," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 609-620.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:49:y:2022:i:4:p:609-620.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scac012
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Etzkowitz, Henry & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2000. "The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and "Mode 2" to a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 109-123, February.
    2. Stefan P. L. de Jong & Jorrit Smit & Leonie van Drooge, 2016. "Scientists’ response to societal impact policies: A policy paradox," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 102-114.
    3. Reetta Muhonen & Paul Benneworth & Julia Olmos-Peñuela, 2020. "From productive interactions to impact pathways: Understanding the key dimensions in developing SSH research societal impact," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 34-47.
    4. David Charles & Fumi Kitagawa & Elvira Uyarra, 2014. "Universities in crisis?—new challenges and strategies in two English city-regions," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 7(2), pages 327-348.
    5. Dennis A. Gioia & Kumar Chittipeddi, 1991. "Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(6), pages 433-448, September.
    6. Mowery, David C. & Nelson, Richard R. & Sampat, Bhaven N. & Ziedonis, Arvids A., 2001. "The growth of patenting and licensing by U.S. universities: an assessment of the effects of the Bayh-Dole act of 1980," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 99-119, January.
    7. Siegel, Donald S. & Waldman, David & Link, Albert, 2003. "Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices: an exploratory study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 27-48, January.
    8. Gunnar Sivertsen & Ingeborg Meijer, 2020. "Normal versus extraordinary societal impact: how to understand, evaluate, and improve research activities in their relations to society?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 66-70.
    9. Julia Olmos-Peñuela & Jordi Molas-Gallart & Elena Castro-Martínez, 2014. "Informal collaborations between social sciences and humanities researchers and non-academic partners," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(4), pages 493-506.
    10. Jordi Molas-Gallart & Puay Tang, 2011. "Tracing ‘productive interactions’ to identify social impacts: an example from the social sciences," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 219-226, September.
    11. Nedeva, Maria, 2013. "Between the global and the national: Organising European science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 220-230.
    12. Stefan P L de Jong & Reetta Muhonen, 2020. "Who benefits from ex ante societal impact evaluation in the European funding arena? A cross-country comparison of societal impact capacity in the social sciences and humanities," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 22-33.
    13. Donald S. Siegel & Reinhilde Veugelers & Mike Wright, 2007. "Technology transfer offices and commercialization of university intellectual property: performance and policy implications," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(4), pages 640-660, Winter.
    14. Stefan P L de Jong & Pleun van Arensbergen & Floortje Daemen & Barend van der Meulen & Peter van den Besselaar, 2011. "Evaluation of research in context: an approach and two cases," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 61-72, March.
    15. Michela Loi & Maria Chiara Di Guardo, 2015. "The third mission of universities: An investigation of the espoused values," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(6), pages 855-870.
    16. Voinov, Alexey & Gaddis, Erica J. Brown, 2008. "Lessons for successful participatory watershed modeling: A perspective from modeling practitioners," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 197-207.
    17. Beerkens, Maarja, 2013. "Facts and fads in academic research management: The effect of management practices on research productivity in Australia," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1679-1693.
    18. Ben R Martin, 2011. "The Research Excellence Framework and the ‘impact agenda’: are we creating a Frankenstein monster?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 247-254, September.
    19. Gulbrandsen, Magnus & Mowery, David & Feldman, Maryann, 2011. "Introduction to the special section: Heterogeneity and university-industry relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-5, February.
    20. Marco Seeber & Benedetto Lepori & Martina Montauti & Jürgen Enders & Harry de Boer & Elke Weyer & Ivar Bleiklie & Kristin Hope & Svein Michelsen & Gigliola Nyhagen Mathisen & Nicoline Frølich & Lisa S, 2015. "European Universities as Complete Organizations? Understanding Identity, Hierarchy and Rationality in Public Organizations," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1444-1474, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Jong, Stefan P.L. & Wardenaar, Tjerk & Horlings, Edwin, 2016. "Exploring the promises of transdisciplinary research: A quantitative study of two climate research programmes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1397-1409.
    2. Helka Kalliomäki & Sampo Ruoppila & Jenni Airaksinen, 2021. "It takes two to tango: Examining productive interactions in urban research collaboration [Generating Research Questions through Problematization]," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 529-539.
    3. Alejandro Bengoa & Amaia Maseda & Txomin Iturralde & Gloria Aparicio, 2021. "A bibliometric review of the technology transfer literature," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 46(5), pages 1514-1550, October.
    4. Schaeffer, Véronique, 2019. "The use of material transfer agreements in academia: A threat to open science or a cooperation tool?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    5. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Filippo Chiarello & Gualtiero Fantoni, 2021. "Impact for whom? Mapping the users of public research with lexicon-based text mining," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1745-1774, February.
    6. James A. Cunningham & Paul O’Reilly, 2018. "Macro, meso and micro perspectives of technology transfer," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 545-557, June.
    7. Victoria Galán-Muros & Peter Sijde & Peter Groenewegen & Thomas Baaken, 2017. "Nurture over nature: How do European universities support their collaboration with business?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 184-205, February.
    8. Kim, Young-Choon & Rhee, Mooweon & Kotha, Reddi, 2019. "Many hands: The effect of the prior inventor-intermediaries relationship on academic licensing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 813-829.
    9. Sánchez-Barrioluengo, Mabel & Benneworth, Paul, 2019. "Is the entrepreneurial university also regionally engaged? Analysing the influence of university's structural configuration on third mission performance," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 206-218.
    10. Battaglia, Daniele & Landoni, Paolo & Rizzitelli, Francesco, 2017. "Organizational structures for external growth of University Technology Transfer Offices: An explorative analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 45-56.
    11. Stefan P L de Jong & Corina Balaban & Maria Nedeva, 2022. "From ‘productive interactions’ to ‘enabling conditions’: The role of organizations in generating societal impact of academic research [One Size Does Not Fit All! New Perspectives on the University ," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 643-645.
    12. Christian Fisch & Tobias Hassel & Philipp Sandner & Joern Block, 2015. "University patenting: a comparison of 300 leading universities worldwide," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 318-345, April.
    13. Yung-Chi Shen, 2017. "Identifying the key barriers and their interrelationships impeding the university technology transfer in Taiwan: a multi-stakeholder perspective," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(6), pages 2865-2884, November.
    14. Hsu, David W.L. & Shen, Yung-Chi & Yuan, Benjamin J.C. & Chou, Chiyan James, 2015. "Toward successful commercialization of university technology: Performance drivers of university technology transfer in Taiwan," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 25-39.
    15. Kadigia Faccin & Christle Beer & Bibiana Volkmer Martins & Grabriela Zanandrea & Neta Kela & Corne Schutte, 2022. "What really matters for TTOs efficiency? An analysis of TTOs in developed and developing economies," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1135-1161, August.
    16. Lai Ma & Rachael Agnew, 2022. "Deconstructing impact: A framework for impact evaluation in grant applications [Evidencing Impact from Art Research: Analysis of Impact Case Studies from the REF 2014]," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 289-301.
    17. Lisa Craiut & Constantin Bungau & Tudor Bungau & Cristian Grava & Pavel Otrisal & Andrei-Flavius Radu, 2022. "Technology Transfer, Sustainability, and Development, Worldwide and in Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-33, November.
    18. Junwen Luo & Lai Ma & Kalpana Shankar, 2021. "Does the inclusion of non-academic reviewers make any difference for grant impact panels? [Understanding the Long Term Impact of the Framework Programme, European Policy Evaluation Consortium (EPEC," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(6), pages 763-775.
    19. Mabel Sánchez-Barrioluengo & Paul Benneworth, 2015. "What makes the difference?," CHEPS Working Papers 201501, University of Twente, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS).
    20. Dalmarco, Gustavo & Hulsink, Willem & Blois, Guilherme V., 2018. "Creating entrepreneurial universities in an emerging economy: Evidence from Brazil," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-111.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:49:y:2022:i:4:p:609-620.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/spp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.