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Conceptualizing the elements of research impact: towards semantic standards

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Title Conceptualizing the elements of research impact: towards semantic standards
 
Creator Belcher, B.
Halliwell, J.
 
Subject impact assessment
research
 
Description Any effort to understand, evaluate, and improve the impact of research must begin with clear concepts and definitions. Currently, key terms to describe research results are used ambiguously, and the most common definitions for these terms are fundamentally flawed. This hinders research design, evaluation, learning, and accountability. Specifically, the terms outcome and impact are often defined and distinguished from one another using relative characteristics, such as the degree, directness, scale, or duration of change. It is proposed instead to define these terms by the kind of change rather than by the degree or temporal nature of change. Research contributions to a change process are modeled as a series of causally inter-related steps in a results chain or results web with three main kinds of results: (i) the direct products of research, referred to as outputs; (ii) changes in the agency and actions of system actors when they are informed/influenced by research outputs, referred to as outcomes; and (iii) tangible changes in the social, economic, environmental, or other physical condition, referred to as realized benefits. Complete definitions for these terms are provided, along with examples. This classification aims to help focus research evaluation appropriately and enhance appreciation of the multiple pathways and mechanisms by which scholarship contributes to change.
 
Date 2021-07-27
2021-10-15T07:29:14Z
2021-10-15T07:29:14Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Belcher, B. and Halliwell, J., 2021. Conceptualizing the elements of research impact: towards semantic standards. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8: 183. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00854-2
2662-9992
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/115452
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00854-2
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format 183
 
Source Humanities and Social Sciences Communications