1,720,992 research outputs found
Impact, innovation, and the public humanities:evaluating the societal impact of research in the United Kingdom
No full textThis chapter addresses two interrelated terms - “impact” and “innovation”. The chapter argues that understanding the effects and influences of these terms is vital in capturing a contemporary picture of the evaluation of the societal relevance of SSH within the UK higher education system. First, in analysing the REF’s implementation of the impact criterion, the chapter illuminates how the mundane operations of research evaluation are directly implicated in systemic valuation of SSH research. Second, in addressing the rise of innovation, the chapter describes an emerging eco-system of business engagement and entrepreneurialism within the contemporary British university. Taking the case study of creative industries research, this chapter details the growing body of academic research engaged with triple-helix models of knowledge creation. Examining current flagship research projects reveals how national funding bodies are encouraging and incentivising SSH scholars to adopt new professional identities. I conclude with an alternative model, introducing the field of the public humanities
In the name of employability: Faculties and futures for the arts and humanities in higher education
Full text linkThis introductory overview sets out the scope and aims of the special issue, which is concerned with establishing more meaningful understandings and discourses on the relationship between arts and humanities and graduate employability. The issue comes at a time of increased government-level questioning of the social and economic value of higher education (HE), and particularly humanities disciplines. The propositions developed in this introduction and the contributing authors’ papers aim towards developing stronger and more meaningful engagement with the future place and role of arts and humanities within HE and wider society. We establish a variety of themes in the value of HE and make connections to the contributing authors’ articles. We finish with critical questions for continued debate and research in the nexus between arts and humanities and graduate outcomes. These are all pertinent to the questions of value that underpin many of the papers in this issue
Accountability in academic life:introduction to European perspectives on societal impact evaluation
No full textAccountability in Academic Life: European Perspectives on Societal Impact Evaluation is an edited collection dedicated to providing European perspectives on the state of societal impact evaluation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, paying special attention to the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The book explores the consequences of the trend for evaluating the quality of research in terms of the basis of the impact that it creates in society, and, we argue, that it is in SSH disciplines that the effects of societal impact evaluation are most visible. Across Europe, the implementation of systematic societal impact evaluation has taken off over the last decade, and we can already see its profound influences on the choices and decisions taken by universities, by faculties and departments, and individual researchers. This introductory chapter explains this international and contemporary context for the edited collection and explains the two-part structure of the book. Accountability in Academic Life documents and articulates the effects that the evaluation of the social impact of research is having on the ways that SSH researchers steer and regulate themselves, and ultimately on SSH research itself. Through this analysis, it also sets out to think more profoundly about the research-society nexus and its relation to research evaluation
The need for historical inquiry into societal impact evaluation:towards a genealogy of the notion of useful research
No full textThis chapter calls for the need for historical inquiry when discussing current societal impact evaluation. The chapter offers a critique of The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (Gibbons et al., 1994). We also observe how their ideas lie at the heart of the current impact agenda in Europe. The chapter challenges the idea of societal impact as a new or emerging phenomenon due to the nature of how research and society develop by analysing the main assumptions of their arguments and showing how the same claims have been made several times throughout history. In doing so, we reveal that it is not the relation between science and society that is changing but the ideology in governance. Second, we propose a typology that helps us to systematise approaches towards conceptualising the research-society nexus. This offers the possibility of contextualising current societal impact evaluation practices and in identifying potential alternatives. It serves as a tool for the future development of a “genealogy of useful research” that will deepen our understanding of the relation between research and society
Manifesto for a better societal impact evaluation
No full textIn this chapter, ENRESSH collaborators write a “Manifesto for a Better Societal Impact” Evaluation. In this, authors have extracted key principles based on some conclusions from the individual country reports which are broken down and/or extrapolated into generalisable findings drawing from the cross-national comparison. In doing so, this manifesto explores what scholars and policymakers from other European countries, and indeed from far wider international backgrounds, can learn from those countries’ experiences and the cross-national comparison. The chapter also goes beyond analysis, in providing a series of condensed recommendations for the evaluation of societal impact in the SSH with a special focus on how the evaluation can impact the work of academics in a positive way. In this collaborative task, we have sought to simultaneously respect disciplinary differences in knowledge production practices as well as in societal functions of research, while making this process as visible as possible
American Education in Popular Media: From the Blackboard to the American Education in Popular Silver Screen
No full textValue and the Humanities:The Neoliberal University and Our Victorian Inheritance
Full text linkTracing the shift from liberal to neoliberal education from the nineteenth century to the present day, this open access book provides a rich and previously underdeveloped narrative of value in higher education in England. Value and the Humanities draws upon historical, financial, and critical debates concerning educational and cultural policy. Rather than writing a singular defence of the humanities against economic rationalism, Zoe Hope Bulaitis constructs a nuanced map of the intersections of value in the humanities, encompassing an exploration of policy engagement, scientific discourses, fictional representation, and the humanities in public life. The book articulates a kaleidoscopic range of humanities practices which demonstrate that although recent policy encourages higher education to be entirely motivated by outcomes, fiscal targets, and the acquisition of employability skills, the humanities continue to inspire and aspire beyond these limits. This book is a historically-grounded and theoretically-informed analysis of the value of the humanities within the context of the market
Beyond the frame: hard-to-assess research–impact nexuses in the social sciences and the humanities
Full text linkThis chapter signposts some important areas of impact that are generative and valued within academic communities but may be difficult to compress into the time-frames, contributory claims, and material evidence of benefit that are often associated with impact narratives that were ‘optimized’ for assessment purposes – such as those of the United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). I describe these nexuses through several features, which go beyond the inherent ambiguity and constructedness of impact as an object of assessment. They are domains where it is difficult to make a distinction or a demarcation between research itself, practice, and research impacts; where there is a potential conflict between the aims and the values that underpin specific modes of research, and the more mainstream or top-down understandings of reach and significance that underpin the methods, indicators and metrics for assessing impact; and also where there is a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity around the distinction between pathways to impact and actual impacts.
These hard-to-assess domains are relational, dynamic and synergetic; they have been and continue to be very difficult, if not impossible, to capture within the technical definitions and institutional frames that we have for assessing research impact, particularly as part of performance-based funding exercises. Such research-impact nexuses include: the critical, emancipatory, and subversive research-impact nexus; the discursive and conceptual research-impact nexus; the collective, reciprocal and deeply collaborative research-impact nexus; the creative, craft and design-based research-impact nexus; and the professionally-oriented and practice-based research-impact nexus. Fitting them into assessment templates that expect separate accounts of research, pathways to impact, and impact, is often an exercise in artificial and instrumental re-storying that may be at odds with the understandings and values of those involved in this work
Accountability in Academic Life : European Perspectives on Societal Impact Evaluation
No full textThis insightful book explores the answers to two ongoing debates: how should societal impact of research be measured and to what extent are national research evaluation systems fit for purpose?
In exploring these two questions, the selection of expert contributors provide thought-provoking cross-European analysis and establish a comparative perspective on “impact” in the twenty-first century. Bringing together important national case studies from social sciences and humanities (SSH), Accountability in Academic Life provides a detailed insight into the complexities faced ensuring that publicly-funded research creates true value for society. Furthermore, leading SSH experts provide policy recommendations and insights to navigate the contemporary research landscape and improve research methods.
This book will be invaluable for scholars and students in science policy studies, providing both accessible stand-alone topics and greater in-depth discussions. Policymakers interested in the improvement of research evaluation leading to better scientific outcomes will also find this informative and illuminating
Measuring impact in the humanities: Learning from accountability and economics in a contemporary history of cultural value
Full text linkThis article addresses the future of research assessment within higher education in the UK from a humanities perspective. Recent changes to policy (such as The Browne Report 2010 and the 2014 REF) indicates that humanities research is increasingly required to provide quantifiable or commercial results in order to attain value. Although research assessment exercises have been a formal part of UK higher education since the first Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 1986, the last 6 years have seen a significant change in how research is valued within the academy. Specifically, this paper responds to the increasing prioritisation of 'impact' measurement in research assessment criteria. The article situates recent changes in higher education within a historical context of cultural policymaking in the UK from the 1980s to the present day. Such an undertaking highlights the specific challenges and nuances within the shift towards 'impact'. Firstly, this paper details how public cultural institutions (such as museums and art galleries) became subject to practises of economisation and social accountability as a result of 1980s cultural policy. A rich field of literature from museology and arts management provides valuable sources and testimonies that should be considered in the future of the academic humanities. Secondly, this paper considers the implications of the creative industries upon the perception of knowledge production since the 1990s. Following this specific history of cultural assessment mechanisms in the UK, this article concludes by demonstrating that neither the adoption of a purely economic approach nor a refusal of accountability will serve the humanities. Whilst there is a wealth of social science research that explores valuation methods and assessment culture there is a lack of humanities research within this vital debate. This article presents a response from a humanities perspective. As a result, this contribution raises awareness of the urgent need for humanities scholars to engage in these emerging and significant debates concerning the future of research assessment in the UK
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