heravalue – measuring the value and impact of arts & humanities research

HERAValue – Measuring the value and impact of Arts & Humanities Research

Paper presented to “Achieving Impact: Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020”

Paul Benneworth, CHEPS, the Netherlands.

IntroductionSSH Impact as a pressing policy/

political issue (focus on AHR as ‘extreme’ case)

Beyond technology transfer: models of research creating value

Three stories of AHRs public value

Towards better measures of public value.

Forthcoming in Arts & Humanities in Higher Education (with all refs).

HERAVALUE ProjectEur. 500k, 2½ yr project in

Humanities in Europeamn Research Area JRP.◦Profr Magnus Gulbrandsen, Norway

The value to civic society ◦Profr Ellen Hazelkorn, Ireland

Government and policy-makers demands◦Paul Benneworth, the Netherlands

Valuable humanities research in universities

‘IMPACT’: A PRESSING POLITICAL ISSUE FOR SSH

Part 1

The self-evident problem of measuring valorisation

Key research questions• How are research funding decisions and hence

the evolving research environment being shaped by these simple models of research value?

• What kinds of new models and explanations of ‘impact’ have emerged from within these disadvantaged disciplines and their stakeholders? And

• How have the arguments and models mobilised by particular disciplinary groups to justify their own value been involved in transforming the wider understanding of research’s value?

FROM TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO PUBLIC VALUE

Part 1

Academic consultancy policies/

careers

Technology transfer, Incubators/ science

parks

Policy instruments for technology transfer e.g. innovation vouchers

CONTEXT

AcquisitionProblem

solving by academics

Technology transfer to

user

Firm productivity growth

Firm absorptive capacity

Market demand

“Value is”… according to technology transfer

Restoring the scales to the flat heuristic

Individual benefits (firm growth)

Meso benefits (regional growth)

Macro benefits (GDP growth)

Research creates useful

knowledge

“Research benefits

private firms”

“Research drives local

development”

“Research benefits all

society”

Towards a basis for measuring impactLooking for evidence across all

scales (relatively easy)Looking for activity highlighting

transference up the scales (quite hard)

Developing proxy measures (very hard)

Allocating responsibility: what leads to ‘upscaling’ and impact (more work required).

THREE EXAMPLES OF A&H RESEARCH CREATING ‘IMPACT’

Part 1

NIOD & the Srebrenica ReportNIOD: Netherlands Institute for

War DocumentationCreated post-WWII for ‘psychic

healing’ of scars of occupation1995 Bosnian War: DutchBat fail

to prevent massacre of Muslims in safe haven

1996 Kok Government orders NIOD Inquiry into events.

From scholarly inquiry to social knowledge

2002 Report: failings in Kok government

Kok resigns: end of ‘paars’ eraAcceptance marks start of

healingCreates political discursive

referent for modern Dutch overseas intervention

Arne Næss & deep green thinkingPost-war reconstruction –

maximising economic output, environmental costs.

1972 Club of Rome report “Limits to Growth”

Næss – Norwegian philosopher who criticised ‘shallow green’ thinking

Rethinking environmental relationships to solve environmental problems

The rise of Deep Green politicsNæss’ texts influential in rise of Green

partiesProvided an outlet for voters to

express concern with price of progressBig political movement:

◦ “Green Parties in the European Union currently account for 45 out of 754 seats in the European Parliament and 189 out of 7,100 seats in EU member states’ lower houses” (Benneworth, 2014)

Created a language to better express voters’ interests/ needs

Philip Pettit & Spanish republicanismPettit: drawing on analytic theory

of the mind to develop political philosophy

Using concepts in one philosophical area to solve problems in others.

Applying philosophy of mind to moral/ political philosophy questions.

Leading scholar: wrote Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy’s 2003 entry for Republicanism.

Achieving change in societyZapatero read Republicanism in

opposition, decided to use for reforms.

2004: invited Pettit to speak and later report back on reform programme

Key changes included same-sex marriage, transsexual rights, anti-discrimination laws & encouraging mutual support.

2008: Spain hit by economic crisis.

TOWARDS BETTER MEASURES OF SSH IMPACT

Part IV

Understanding landscape dynamicsSSH research achieves value in

societal conversationsSocietal conversations involve

concepts flowing, evolving, deforming, dying out.

Value produced by unself-conscious use of those concepts & belief systems

Need to focus measurement systems on understanding ‘social life of humanities concepts’ and look how publics use it.

Interscalar value processes

Individual benefits(Private goods)

Meso benefits (Club goods)

Macro benefits (Collective goods)

“How networks institutions?

?

Where is HR in collective goods?

How do users absorb

research?

Towards an interscalar research agendaHow do users engage with SSH

research?Where does SSH research feature

in societal networks?What happens to SSH

knowledges when networks become institutions?

What indicators can we find to describe and capture these processes?