Social Science Space

A critical blind spot in the impact agenda has been that impact is understood and defined solely in positive terms. Gemma Derrick and Paul Benneworth introduce the concept of ‘grimpact’ to describe instances where research negatively impacts society. Researchers and science systems, they argue, are poorly equipped to deal with.

Promoting public engagement with research has become a core mission for research funders. However, the extent to which researchers can assess the impact of this engagement is often under-analysed and limited to success stories. Drawing on the example of development aid, Marco J Haenssgen argues we need to widen the parameters for assessing public engagement and begin to develop a skills base for the external evaluation of public engagement work.