Research Impact Assessment on Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education Institutions: A Qualitative Study

Assessing research impact and the practical value of research output can be effectively accomplished by considering various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as they may interpret and measure research impact in distinct ways. This paper aims to identify research grants that are aligned to SDGs, identify researchers’ perceptions of the research impact on SDGs and frame the research impact on SDGs. This paper is a qualitative study that involves content analysis on research grant documents, online responses and focus group discussion with university’s researchers. The study analyzed 1,495 research grants received by researchers at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the views of 46 principal investigators through online responses and focus group discussions, The study found that research impact on SDGs could be modelled based on the sustainability dimensions of the 17 SDGs, leading to seven types of impact: economic impact, social impact, environmental impact, cultural impact, public policy impact, organizational impact, and educational impact. By referring to the Elsevier 2021 SDG keywords, we concluded that while the majority of research grants focus on one SDG, interrelated SDGs also exist in many SDGs, cutting across several research impacts. The perception of PIs towards research impact stems from their understanding of SDGs and the conventional research output of networking, patent and commercialization, publication and citation, and students. To achieve a better future, it is essential to have thorough and structured monitoring and evaluation of research grants. This ensures that their results and outputs consistently contribute to the accomplishment of the SDGs.