Maximising geoscience for societal benefit through evaluation of impact

Abstract:

There is a growing demand and need for science to be societally relevant and for researchers to be able to clearly demonstrate the value of research that is funded by taxpayer dollars. Furthermore, funding agencies are also increasingly looking for projects that demonstrate impact. In the academic sector, research impact is often measured and compared using publication metrics for example the number of publications, citations, and journal impact factors. This definition of impact does not account for scientific benefits beyond the academic sector. However, scientific outputs can feed into the societal pillars through a number of sectors including education, government and commercial.

For geosciences, demonstration of impact into these sectors is often binary in terms of counting deliverables and activities communicating scientific developments back to defined stakeholders; for example, delivery of stakeholder workshops or public talks. While these activities are important and can lead to useful outcomes, there is limited understanding of how impactful these activities are and guidance on how best we can report impact as researchers.

Here we outline our initial impact evaluation framework and discuss how it can be used to both benchmark project outputs and to track progress. This framework was based on reviewing, tailoring, and adapting existing evaluation approaches used to measure scientific impact globally. We examined existing evaluation approaches and metrics used for science research projects as well as the value of more qualitative approaches of measuring impact. The Raranga Whāriki Papa Moana/Beneath the Waves Endeavour programme (2021-2026) aims to deliver geohazard outcomes across multiple sectors including education, government and commercial. This draft framework will be tested and refined through our product development cycle.