Exploring University Institutionalisation of Policy Citations as a Societal Impact Indicator
About the research:
In the U.S., peer-review publication indices and grant awards constitute the metrics for success at R1 universities. Metrics related to societal benefit, however, are not widely adopted or required. At a time when the Academy is particularly concerned with advertising its value to the public, our mixed-methods study aims to explore what faculty and administrators from a range of disciplines want in a social impact metric and ways that policy citation reports may contribute to developing such an index.
Using Virginia Tech as a case example, this project explores research faculty and administrator views at one university regarding how to measure the societal impact of research, ways that colleges and units currently or might metricize this beyond academic publications, and the degree to which a policy citation database could be utilized to this end.
The research is supported by the +Policy Network and Overton Policy Grant Program.
About the researchers:
Isabel S. Bradburn, Ph.D., is a research psychologist and associate director of strategic and faculty initiatives for the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment. She directs the +Policy Network and studies programs for children and families.
Anne-Lise Velez, Ph.D., is a collegiate professor with the Virginia Tech Honors College and an affiliate of the School of Public and International Affairs. She is the faculty lead of the +Policy Network.
Weigh in on measuring the societal impact of your research
The +Policy Network invites you to participate in our exploration of how the societal impact of research is, and might be, measured, beyond peer-reviewed publications. We are interested in your views, how your college currently measures this in performance and promotional evaluations, and whether you feel any changes should be made. We anticipate the survey taking about 15 minutes.
We also ask if you would like to be considered for an interview at your convenience. This is an optional add-on to the survey. We are hoping to get broad representation from different colleges. To that end, please pass this invitation and survey link to colleagues you think might be interested.
The purpose of the survey and interviews is to better understand how the university metricizes societal impact or value. Results will be shared with the Virginia Tech community as well as with our partial funder, Overton, Ltd., a policy citation database organization. Results may be shared with academic audiences through presentations or publication. The IRB has designated the study as “Not Research” (IRB 26-302).