Social Science Space

UK Research and Innovation, Britain’s main research funding body, is scrapping separate impact sections from all grant applications. Paul Benneworth and Julia Olmos Peñuela argue how impact statements can produce meaningful statements of the potential future impact of research and set out a framework for assessing these claims.

Our debut writing contest for impactful social and behavioral research drew entries from around the globe, both institutionally and where fieldwork occurred. With entries ranging from Albania to New Zealand, we saw no lack of desire from practicing researchers to share the exciting news that their work matters in “real life.”

Over the years, Australia has had a confused relationship with the impact agenda, with much of this grounded in the vagaries of government. When the idea of a national exercise to evaluate research was first touted in the form of the Research Quality Framework, the focus was to be on both quality and…

Using bibliometrics to measure and assess researchers has become increasingly common, but does implementing these policies therefore devalue the metrics they are based on? Here researchers present evidence from a study of Italian researchers revealing how the introduction of bibliometric targets has changed the way Italian academics cite and use the work of their colleagues.

Since its debut in the Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy in 1990, the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure has been adopted by, more than 40 countries across healthcare professions, and as such is the most widely used occupational therapy measure in the world. The article has received 490 citations according to CrossRef and has been cited, according to Google Scholar, 843 times.

Research Impact and the Early Career Researcher presents chapters that reflect on the experiences that ‘early career researchers’ have had in relation to research impact. The collection is not a manual or textbook on how to achieve impact, but instead presents different voices on how researchers experience and react to the demand for impact.

Earlier this month, Ted Hewitt, the president of Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council, presented the 2019 SSHRC Impact Awards to gold medal winner Will Kymlicka and four other notables at a ceremony in Ottawa.

Nominations to honor an individual whose work has advanced the role of the social and behavioral sciences in enriching and enhancing public policy and good governance are being taken now. The honoree will join luminaries such as William Julius Wilson and Daniel Kahneman as recipient of the SAGE-CASBS Award, sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University and SAGE Publishing.

Benedikt Fecher and Sascha Friesike present the first chapter of a work in progress and invite readers to contribute to a larger collaborative writing project seeking to reframe the way we currently think about research impact.

Rupert Brown, the biographer of Henri Tajfel, talks about the pioneering explorer of prejudice in this Social Science Bites podcast. Brown reviews the roots of Tajfel’s research arising from the Holocaust, and the current repercussions of Tajfel’s personal misdeeds.

Vicky Randall, a political scientist whose research into how marginalized populations – such as women, the aged, and those outside the First World – can and do interact in politics, died on November 22. The emeritus professor of government at Essex University was 74.

COSSA is now seeking nominations for the 2020 COSSA Public Impact Award. If you know of individuals, groups, or organizations that are using social and behavioral science research to affect real change in society, consider nominating them!