The Impact of the Social Sciences
How Academics and their Research Make a Difference
- Simon Bastow - London School of Economics
- Patrick Dunleavy - London School of Economics & Political Science, UK
- Jane Tinkler - London School of Economics
The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society?
Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including:
- identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences
- developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research
- explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved.
This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.
You can read a snapshot of the results, Visualising the Data, free online. To download a PDF click here, or to browse a flipbook, click here.
| The scale and diversity of the social sciences |
| The social sciences and human-dominated systems |
| Perceptions of ‘impact’ from the social sciences |
| The academic impacts of social science researchers |
| The external impacts of researchers |
| Profiling different types of academic and their impacts |
| Multi-variate modelling of impacts |
| The factors shaping academic impacts |
| The factors shaping external impacts |
| Using case studies of high impact academics |
| Explaining high impacts at the individual level |
| Pulling together the analysis |
| The range of university links with business |
| The scale of social sciences involvement with business |
| Barriers to greater use of social science research in firms |
| Social science and the policy arena |
| The scale of social science links to policy |
| Social scientists’ influence on policy |
| Civil society organizations and ‘advocacy coalitions’ |
| The scale of social science research links to civil society |
| Growing the impacts of social science in the third sector |
| Academic expertise and ‘the public’ |
| Social scientists and conventional news media |
| Social science and social media |
| Innovating with social science and the media |
| The dynamic knowledge inventory |
| The mediation of social science research |
| Joining up for a ‘broad-front’ social science |
| Re-framing human-centred disciplines and integrating STEM and social sciences |
| Towards a more global social science |
The Impact of the Social Sciences is a very important book, because it shows the enormous impact the social sciences have made in business, government, and civil society. At a time when governments overly concentrate on science and engineering, they fail to understand that without the social sciences many of the physical science/technological advances would have little traction, particularly without an understanding of human and social behaviour and change. This is a must read for all, particularly decision makers in government and business.
The social sciences have tremendous impact potential. But in practice, our research community can take much more responsibility for generating a return on the public’s investment. Readable, relevant and evidence based, this book will inspire the research community to deliver greater impact.
Of all areas of academic research, the social sciences should be the most concerned with the question of impact, with how they affect the societies they study. This book is a valuable guide to the importance of social science research, and sets out a systematic approach to thinking about and measuring its different types of impact.
This ambitious, learned, and valuable book confronts fundamental questions about the scope of the social sciences, the character of its audiences, mechanisms of influence, criteria for assessment, and the impact of digital culture. Richly detailed and rigorously reasoned, this is a must read.
The new book from the LSE is timely. It provides a rich, empirical account. It is based on analyses of staffing data, profiles of the outputs and impacts of a sample of 270 researchers drawn from online sources, reviews from universities' websites, interviews with 100 researchers proactive in identifying the impact for their work, interviews with potential research users, published surveys and case studies of research/practice linkages, and revenue flows to researchers. The book is jargon-free, well-structured, with clear tables and revealing graphics, and some pertinent and witty quotations - all in all a model of research communication. It is accompanied by a website and through its production, it has been accompanied by a blog which continues...This work is a valuable contribution to understanding the often fraught research/practice relationship.
