IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v126y2021i9d10.1007_s11192-021-04096-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Societal impact of research: a text mining study of impact types

Author

Listed:
  • Han Zheng

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • L. G. Pee

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Dan Zhang

    (Nankai University)

Abstract

In addition to academic impact, researchers are increasingly concerned with understanding and demonstrating the practical impact of research outside academia. Several frameworks capturing key impact types have been developed based on project experiences, expert opinions, and surveys. This empirical study seeks to contribute to this development by identifying impact types documented in 6,882 case studies submitted to impact evaluation groups in Australia (Engagement and Impact Assessment) and the United Kingdom (Research Excellence Framework). The results of text mining indicate three emerging impact types that extend existing frameworks in terms of the recognition of new opportunities, the length of use, and experience improvement, thereby allowing a variety of researchers, not just those who address popular, short-term, and instrumental issues, to understand and demonstrate their practice impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Han Zheng & L. G. Pee & Dan Zhang, 2021. "Societal impact of research: a text mining study of impact types," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7397-7417, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:9:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04096-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04096-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-021-04096-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-021-04096-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "What is societal impact of research and how can it be assessed? a literature survey," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 217-233, February.
    2. Lin Zhang & Wenjing Zhao & Beibei Sun & Ying Huang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2020. "How scientific research reacts to international public health emergencies: a global analysis of response patterns," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 747-773, July.
    3. Wolfgang Glänzel & Pei-Shan Chi, 2020. "The big challenge of Scientometrics 2.0: exploring the broader impact of scientific research in public health," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1011-1031, November.
    4. Henk F. Moed & Gali Halevi, 2015. "Multidimensional assessment of scholarly research impact," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(10), pages 1988-2002, October.
    5. Emma Terämä & Melanie Smallman & Simon J Lock & Charlotte Johnson & Martin Zaltz Austwick, 2016. "Beyond Academia – Interrogating Research Impact in the Research Excellence Framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Lutz Bornmann & Werner Marx, 2014. "How should the societal impact of research be generated and measured? A proposal for a simple and practicable approach to allow interdisciplinary comparisons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 211-219, January.
    7. Pei-Shan Chi & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2018. "Comparison of citation and usage indicators in research assessment in scientific disciplines and journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 537-554, July.
    8. Landry, Rejean & Amara, Nabil & Lamari, Moktar, 2001. "Utilization of social science research knowledge in Canada," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 333-349, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ana Sofia Brandão & José M. R. C. A. Santos, 2024. "Sustainability from Policy to Practice: Assessing the Impact of European Research and Innovation Frameworks on Circular Bioeconomy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-25, March.
    2. Dotti, Nicola Francesco & Walczyk, Julia, 2022. "What is the societal impact of university research? A policy-oriented review to map approaches, identify monitoring methods and success factors," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    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. Bornmann, Lutz & Haunschild, Robin & Adams, Jonathan, 2019. "Do altmetrics assess societal impact in a comparable way to case studies? An empirical test of the convergent validity of altmetrics based on data from the UK research excellence framework (REF)," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 325-340.
    2. Matteo Pedrini & Valentina Langella & Mario Alberto Battaglia & Paola Zaratin, 2018. "Assessing the health research’s social impact: a systematic review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1227-1250, March.
    3. Lutz Bornmann & Robin Haunschild & Werner Marx, 2016. "Policy documents as sources for measuring societal impact: how often is climate change research mentioned in policy-related documents?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1477-1495, December.
    4. Keungoui Kim & Dieter F. Kogler & Sira Maliphol, 2024. "Identifying interdisciplinary emergence in the science of science: combination of network analysis and BERTopic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Zhiqi Wang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Yue Chen, 2020. "The impact of preprints in Library and Information Science: an analysis of citations, usage and social attention indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1403-1423, November.
    6. Bornmann, Lutz, 2014. "Validity of altmetrics data for measuring societal impact: A study using data from Altmetric and F1000Prime," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 935-950.
    7. Zhang, Lin & Sivertsen, Gunnar & Du, Huiying & HUANG, Ying & Glänzel, Wolfgang, 2021. "Gender differences in the aims and impacts of research," SocArXiv 9n347, Center for Open Science.
    8. João Carlos Nabout & Fabrício Barreto Teresa & Karine Borges Machado & Vitor Hugo Mendonça Prado & Luis Mauricio Bini & José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho, 2018. "Do traditional scientometric indicators predict social media activity on scientific knowledge? An analysis of the ecological literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 1007-1015, May.
    9. 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.
    10. Marco Gatti, 2018. "The Impact of Management Accounting Research: An Analysis of the Past and a Look at the Future," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(5), pages 1-47, March.
    11. Lin Zhang & Gunnar Sivertsen & Huiying Du & Ying Huang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2021. "Gender differences in the aims and impacts of research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 8861-8886, November.
    12. Bührer, Susanne & Feidenheimer, Alexander & Walz, Rainer & Lindner, Ralf & Beckert, Bernd & Wallwaey, Elisa, 2022. "Concepts and methods to measure societal impacts: An overview," Discussion Papers "Innovation Systems and Policy Analysis" 74, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    13. Rousseau, Sandra & Catalano, Giuseppe & Daraio, Cinzia, 2021. "Can we estimate a monetary value of scientific publications?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    14. Dotti, Nicola Francesco & Walczyk, Julia, 2022. "What is the societal impact of university research? A policy-oriented review to map approaches, identify monitoring methods and success factors," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    15. Jonathan P. Doh & Lorraine Eden & Anne S. Tsui & Srilata Zaheer, 2023. "Developing international business scholarship for global societal impact," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(5), pages 757-767, July.
    16. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang & Yang Zhang, 2023. "The effect of social media knowledge cascade: an analysis of scientific papers diffusion," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5169-5195, September.
    17. Nathalie Taverdet-Popiolek, 2022. "Economic Footprint of a Large French Research and Technology Organisation in Europe: Deciphering a Simplified Model and Appraising the Results," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(1), pages 44-69, March.
    18. Cinzia Daraio & Simone Di Leo & Loet Leydesdorff, 2022. "Using the Leiden Rankings as a Heuristics: Evidence from Italian universities in the European landscape," LEM Papers Series 2022/08, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    19. Ouimet, Mathieu & Landry, Réjean & Amara, Nabil & Belkhodja, Omar, 2006. "What factors induce health care decision-makers to use clinical guidelines? Evidence from provincial health ministries, regional health authorities and hospitals in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 964-976, February.
    20. Temilade Sesan & Willie Siyanbola, 2021. "“These are the realities”: insights from facilitating researcher-policymaker engagement in Nigeria’s household energy sector," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.

    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:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:9:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04096-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.