heravalue – measuring the value and impact of arts & humanities research
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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 . Introduction. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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?