Fewer researchers, but still many, agree that societal impact should have more weight in research evaluations. Female researchers are more interested in supporting minorities (41%) than male researchers (25%). 0000056585 00000 n
There are noteworthy differences among academic status groups: 60% of doctoral researchers but only 42% of postdocs and 47% of professors in our sample agree that societal relevance should have more weight in evaluation. (28) $4.99. Moreover, it is apparent that societal goals are subject to disciplinary considerations: We show that scholars from the humanities have culture and discourse-oriented goals, social scientists have discourse-, policy- and social-justice-related goals and natural scientists have innovation- and health-related goals. We used a 5-point Likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree) to elicit agreement or disagreement with a statement. Societal impact is also a key component in European research funding [1214]. In recent years, new approaches have been developed that specifically address the SSH [6, 61, 62]. 0000056395 00000 n
Applied universities are Germany-specific tertiary education and research institutions. impact of science on society. Only 15% of respondents from the humanities are convinced that their institutional communication departments are reaching relevant stakeholders in society, compared to 30% of natural scientists and 31% of social scientists. Resources, Assessing the Impact of Unfolding Case Study Scenarios during. DBU Digital Business University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany. Access our PowerPoint Ebooks here and become a brilliant presentation designer. here. No, Is the Subject Area "Research quality assessment" applicable to this article? We further provide initial evidence on potentially relevant research perspectives. One reason for this discrepancy may be that researchers fear that evaluations will lead to additional work or that they will not adequately record their transfer activities [23, 60, 64]. 2. Young researchers (age group 1829 years, mostly PhD students) reported less often that they aim to contribute to public discourse (37% in comparison to 65% for 3039-year-olds) or political decision-making (21% in comparison to 48% for 4049-year-olds). Even though the majority of researchers regard public engagement as part of scientific work, they are not equally positive about whether societal impact should have more weight in evaluations. It has a specific role, as well as a variety of functions for the benefit of our society: creating new knowledge, improving education, and increasing the quality of our lives. Copyright: 2021 Fecher, Hebing. In 2020, it set up a think tank to work out how societal impact could be evaluated [17]. Science must respond to societal needs and global challenges. Some of the questions we analyzed were implemented as a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree). 0:04 Science & Society; 1:09 Physics & Natural Phenomena; 1:43 Quantum & Nuclear Physics; 3:14 Astrophysics; 4:08 Lesson Summary; . This, however, corresponded roughly to the general gender distribution in German academia [85, 86]. Positive and negative impact of ICT on society positive impact: A.) Likewise, the topic is on the top of the agenda of prominent policy makers and research organizations in Germany, where our study took place. <br . 0000068081 00000 n
We show that most researchers regard societal engagement as part of their job and are generally in favor of impact evaluation. Across all disciplinary groups, the respondents largely agree that public engagement is part of scientific activity (from 86% in the natural sciences, 91% in the humanities, to 93% in the social sciences). Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, Germany, Yes We found very little empirical research that looked at how researchers approach societal impact. A Brief History of Creativity from Cheops Pyramid to Silicon Valley: 5000 Yea Week 1, an introduction to the systematic study of society. To answer the research questions, we conducted a survey from April to June 2020 among 499 scientists in Germany. 0000001096 00000 n
Participants were invited with an initial email and one reminder, both including a request to distribute the survey among colleagues. Although these concepts differ in their objectives, they generally assume a form of scientific value creation that is no longer self-sufficient and is increasingly interwoven with society. It makes sense for critical evaluation research to make use of empirical work on the exchange between science and society. Cinema films can do a lot to eradicate these evils. While there is a considerable body of literature on how the public perceives research, less attention has been paid to the institutional conditions for engagement and how researchers themselves deal with the public. For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click These explorations of the role of science in society were, however, primarily theoretical in nature. Toward Gender-responsive and Technology A Braided River: the universe of Indian Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, Broadening the Application of the Sustainability Science Approach, Protection of human rights : Procedure 104. Discover a faster, simpler path to publishing in a high-quality journal. The fruits of science Geogirl. Yes Science generates solutions for everyday life and helps us to answer the great mysteries of the universe. Martin, for example, asked pointedly whether the creation of the REF would create a Frankenstein monster, because the costs of conducting the evaluation might outweigh the benefits [8]. No, Is the Subject Area "Social media" applicable to this article? Our results add to the ongoing scholarly discourse on societal impact. Get started for FREE Continue. However, due to their applied approach, societal impact should presumably play a more central role for researchers at these kinds of institutions. RQ1 was covered by a set of items (C1) addressing researchers attitudes towards societal impacti.e., their opinions regarding the importance of knowledge transfer as part of scientific activity and at their institutions, their opinions towards a stronger weighting of societal impact in research evaluation, and the performance of their institutions communication department in reaching relevant societal stakeholders. The second pretest round involved researchers from different disciplines who completed the survey, focusing on its usability and providing us with a first dataset for preliminary analysis and optimization. Often, these relationships are viewed from one of two opposite directions. Validation, PLOS ONE promises fair, rigorous peer review, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254006.g002. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Here, we report on the largest section (C: knowledge transfer), which covers our three RQs, and use questions from sections A, B, and F for the explanatory analysis. broad scope, and wide readership a perfect fit for your research every time. Comparing applied and basic researchers, we noted that basic researchers hardly ever offer advisory formats (14% for basic researchers vs. 47% for applied researchers) or collaborations (17% for primarily basic researchers vs. 39% for primarily applied researchers). Visualization, In this paper, I explore how one might understand the way advances in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology impact employment and education, with the ultimate goal of possibly predicting when these changes are likely to occur. Researchers at applied universities agree that societal relevance should have more weight in evaluation more often than those at independent institutes and universitiesthe approval rates are 62%, 49%, and 53% respectively. Serving a term of President-Elect 2021-2023, President 2023-2025 and Past-President 2025-2027. In this paper, we focus on those who stated that their primary work location is Germany, leaving us with 499 valid (59%) cases to analyze. No, Is the Subject Area "Decision making" applicable to this article? In the following, we will delineate these two discourses and reflect on their implications for this study. Based on a communication-centered approach, this article examines how researchers approach societal impact, that is, what they think about societal impact in research governance, what their societal goals are, and how they use communication formats. The challenges of measuring and assessing impacts are well known in the prior literature on evaluations of societal impact. Modern science is relatively new having it's origin about 350 years ago. However, female researchers agree that societal relevance should be part of research evaluation more often than male researchers (62% compared to 44%). The data was analyzed anonymously. Work Humanities scholars especially use social media to communicate results (55% compared to 33% of natural scientists and 38% of social scientists). On the other hand, scientists must understand the problems policy-makers face and endeavor to make the results of their research relevant and comprehensible to society. Computer is a Machine Information Technology revolves around computers Society before computers / information technology The application of information technology Social issues Your thoughts. Principles of an Attractive Headline 1. In case you need help on any kind of academic writing visit website www.HelpWriting.net and place your order, Do not sell or share my personal information, 1. In the research section we present the results for the three research questions alongside the three dimensions of the independent variables, i.e., the content dimension, the organizational dimension, and the dimension of a researchers individual characteristics. The goals are either to improve policies that affect science (policy for science) or to improve policies that can benefit from scientific understanding (science for policy). through formative evaluations [88]. Database technology has a direct impact on our daily lives. Another impact of technology on education is that it has significantly changed how learning content is delivered. Chairperson of UCC Science Society for 2020/21, coordinating the running of over 30 academic events from industry leaders, managing large institutional budgets and managing and motivating a team through the COVID-19 remote environment. We designed a standardized instrument, consisting of six sections (A: sociodemographics, B: work context, C: knowledge transfer, D: teaching, E: research, F: general questions, G: personality). If, as stated above, the old social contract granted science relative freedom in return for widely diffused benefits for society, the new social contract for science imposes accountability for the freedom granted to science [2123]. German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Berlin, Germany, Affiliations We bring together leading experts in government and academia from all . Additionally, we contacted the directors of each institute within the biggest German non-university research organizations (in the following shortened to independent institutes), i.e., the Max Planck Society, the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. The case studies were analyzed by two coders separately and frequently discussed in the research group in order to achieve intercoder reliability. DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-26011-7 Corpus ID: 257183748; The impact of brick kilns on environment and society: a bibliometric and thematic review. It is evident that humanities scholars especially use social media to communicate about their research: 55% of humanities scholars approve of such methods compared to 33% of natural scientists and 38% of social scientists. 6 The response rate for this survey is unknown because we are unable to determine the number of residents who . 0000031386 00000 n
The impact of science and technology on modern society is broad and wide-ranging, influencing such areas as politics, diplomacy, defense, the economy, medicine, transportation, agriculture, social capital improvement, and many more. We selected the universities and applied universities based on the number of students and chose the 20 largest and the 20 smallest as well as 20 medium-sized ones. Because of the differences outlined above, we decided to conduct a regression analysis (see Table 1). This might be explained by the fact that university researchers have teaching obligations not faced by those at independent institutes and thus less time for engagement activities. Younger researchers use social media to communicate about their research more than older researchers, and male researchers particularly tend to use advisory formats. This can likely be explained by the experience that older researchers have acquired, which might make them especially well placed to influence public and political decision-making. fellow meta-researchers) and methodological experts who reviewed both the content and the design of the survey. Our analysis is based on a survey among 499 researchers in Germany conducted from April to June 2020. The number of participants with other sex was so small that they were not included in these graphs.