Impact Re-Loaded

Abstract

concept. The reason is that they study impact, they reflect impact, and they assess impact. It is not by chance that a social scientist has elevated the notion of "unintended consequences" to prominence and that assessing these consequences has become one of the main rationales of applied research in the social sciences and humanities. b. The social sciences and humanities have made tremendous progress in the past two decades, in terms of expanding their methodology and conceptual approaches. While there is still much disagreement among disciplines, schools of thought, and epistemic communities, much of this is due to the logic of how academia is organised. Here, "impact" may offer a powerful leverage to address inconsistencies and to come up with a more collaborative understanding of what is at stake, thereby ironing out many of the rather frustrating internal academic struggles. c. Finally, the rise and productivity of the social sciences and humanities have been strongly connected and inevitably shaped by the process of modernity. While this interdependence has been acknowledged, the repercussions have not fully been absorbed. Transformative science must be transformative in a double sense: wanting to exert influence in society but also open to be influenced by society and its needs. In other words, only if open two-way mutual communication channels are established, societal needs, regardless of their origins and the ways in which they are expressed, the transformative power inherent in SSH research can unfold in society. Among other, this necessitates greater openness and readiness as well as capability to involve heterogeneous groups in society, rather than remaining fixated on policy-makers. The conference offers a unique setting to take on these various aspects, and to rethink the vital role the social sciences and humanities can play in facing many of the challenges European societies are confronted with. Policy issues range: from environmental issues and behaviour, agricultural policy and consumption, technology and innovation, security, foreign and defence, public finances, culture and media, health, judiciary, to transport and economic sustainability. To stimulate a process of reloading , we invite for papers from different perspectives of impact. In particular, we would like to move "impact" from a mostly defensive, albeit policy-relevant instrument to something that will become a transformative element towards a more inclusive society.

Proceedings of the Conference "Impact of Social Sciences and Humanities for a European Research Agenda - Valuation of SSH in mission-oriented research" VIENNA 2018

“…In line with this, the European Parliament (2017) argued for a broader and clearer definition of impact by raising awareness on societal, cultural and long-term impacts, while the Estonian EU Council Presidency (2017) urged in general for a more sophisticated and dynamic approach to impact assessment. These political claims (and others) were taken-up and addressed during the Austrian Council of the EU Presidency Conference on the 'Impact of SSH for a European Research Agenda -Valuation of SSH in mission-oriented research', which was organised by the author of this article in Vienna end of November 2018 (König, Nowotny and Schuch, 2019 in these proceedings; Reiter-Pazmandy, 2019 in these proceedings).…”

Research Impact and Sustainability in Education: A Conceptual Literature Review

“…Research sustainability and impact are at the epicenter of researchers' and policy makers' discussions and agendas and reverberate in various scientific areas and contexts [1,2]. Governments, research funding agencies and researchers themselves are increasingly aware of both their responsibility to ensure sustainability [3] and to evaluate the impact of funded academic research [4].…”

“…Peer review filter was applied 2. Quotation marks were not used because, with them, the search was null 3.…”