Evaluation of societal impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities in Finland

This chapter explores the question of how societal impact of research is evaluated in Finland. The main focus of the analysis will scrutinise how evaluation criteria and procedures take into account the characteristics of impact creation in the social sciences and humanities. The following report identifies the most relevant evaluation procedures at national, university, project, and researcher level that regularly concern Finnish universities and their academic personnel. As there is no national research evaluation protocol in Finland, societal impact is considered in different ways in various evaluation procedures, all of which influence the Finnish academics’ work by creating steering effects. By breaking down these processes into levels - namely at a national, university, project, and researcher level - and identifying case study procedures for each, we reveal the ways in which societal impact evaluation works in Finland.