New Tool Empowers Researchers to Uncover Their Policy Impact

Sage, the parent of Social Science Space, has launched a tool to empower researchers to discover the real-world impact of their work on policy. Sage Policy Profiles lets researchers easily see specific citations of their work in policy documents and then illustrate and share that work’s impact graphically. The tool is powered by Overton, which hosts an extensive repository of global policy documents, guidelines, think-tank publications, and working papers. CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW TO TRY IT OUT.

The free-of-charge, browser-based tool shows researchers where their work appears in evidence-based policies, offering insights into how policymakers make use of their research. Sage Policy Profiles presents these results in a personalized dashboard from which researchers can export citations and present their policy impact visually.

“Here at Sage, we’ve long focused on making sure everyone outside of the social and behavioral science community can see—and make use of—the clear benefits this research brings to tackle wicked problems,” said Ziyad Marar, president of Global Publishing at Sage. “The launch of Sage Policy Profiles is really the other side of that coin, allowing researchers themselves to both see how important their work is and then be able to alert a wider audience to that very real impact,” he continued. “We believe it will help widen the research impact conversation so that it centers not just on scholarly progress but on societal good.”

Additional functionalities include:

• Identifying second-order citations where policies citing their work have continued to influence subsequent discussions and decisions.
• Personalized alerts that inform users when cited or mentioned in new policy documents.
• Exporting results into PowerPoint for presenting.
• Creating a shareable link to personalized dashboards.

“The current system we have for assessing research impact and researchers has real flaws, but we don’t need to overhaul the whole thing to make meaningful improvements for researchers who want their work to be useful,” said Euan Adie, founder and managing director of Overton. “We share with Sage the belief that there are incremental improvements we can make, and Sage Policy Profiles is an important next step.”

Sage is committed to broadening how research impact is defined, shifting the focus from purely scholarly dimensions to encompass its contributions to policy, practice, and the public. Recognizing that such a transformation will require time and dedication, Sage, as an independent company, is committed to this goal for the long term.

While researchers in all disciplines can benefit from the tool, given social and behavioral sciences (SBS) outsized impact in the policy world, Sage has housed it on Social Science Space to bring attention to the unique, real-world value of SBS.