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Background We are witnessing increasing demand from governments and society for all sciences to have relevant social impact and to show the returns they provide to society. Aims and objectives This paper reports strategies that promote social impact by Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research projects. Methods An in-depth analysis of six Social Sciences and Humanities research projects that achieved social impact was carried out to identify those strategies. For each case study, project documents were analysed and qualitative fieldwork was conducted with diverse agents, including researchers, stakeholders and end-users, with a communicative orientation. Findings The strategies that were identified as contributing to achieving social impact include a clear focus of the project on social impact and the definition of an active strategy for achieving it; a meaningful involvement of stakeholders and end-users throughout the project lifespan, including local organisations, underprivileged end-users, and policy makers who not only are recipients of knowledge generated by the research projects but participate in the co-creation of knowledge; coordination between projects’ and stakeholders’ activities; and dissemination activities that show useful evidence and are oriented toward creating space for public deliberation with a diverse public. Discussion and conclusions The strategies identified can enhance the social impact of Social Sciences and Humanities research. Furthermore, gathering related data, such as collaboration with stakeholders, use of projects’ findings and the effects of their implementation, could allow researchers to track the social impact of the projects and enhance the evaluation of research impact.

The article carries out a systematic literature review on the social impact of research in all fields of study. To this end, this study has compiled the publications on the subject using the Web of Science database, and the most relevant terms have been mapped using the VOSviewer tool. The aim of the article is to advance and provide knowledge on the key aspects to be taken into account for research to generate social benefits and to analyse the main methods and instruments used to assess the social impact of research. At the same time, this article serves as a point of reflection to raise awareness, on a recent topic, of the limitations that arise in evaluation and research gaps that can be addressed in future research. This line of research has been in existence for just over 10 years. International programmes, such as Horizon Europe, highlight the impact channels and, in the field of social sciences, specific methodologies such as communicative communication are being developed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the subject from a global point of view, without specifying the field of study, providing a conceptual map of the subject.

Actionable knowledge (AK) refers to knowledge that is both rigorous and relevant. Previous works have assumed these features to be separate ontological realms and have focused on crafting theories to explain the mechanisms whereby those realms can be bridged to generate AK. Because of this orientation, we call such approaches bridging theories and claim that they have neglected research systems in which rigor and relevance are ontologically mingled. In the present study, we aimed to analyze how rigor and relevance can become ontologically mingled rather than bridged. We adopted hybridism as our ontology and an epistemology grounded in interactive moments featuring knowing-from-within to conduct two inductive, interpretive case studies of the development of research systems in business schools. Based on our findings, we developed a conceptual model to describe the process by which (rigorous) scientific and (relevant) practical knowledge systems are hybridized and become ontologically mingled over time. We introduce the notion of research hybridization and discuss this concept in relation to bridging theories. While bridging theories explain AK generation in terms of the agential role played by collaboration among researchers and contextual stakeholders, research hybridization explains AK in terms of the agential role played by the actions institutionally undertaken in business schools regarding research.

Alternative metrics are increasingly used to measure the social impact of research. This article seeks to analyze the social impact of research in the field of tourism. For this purpose, we will determine the extent to which the articles in this field reach society by examining the scores they achieve on social media and studying the correlation between scientific impact and social impact. Altmetric information will be used for data extraction and analysis. The results show a low correlation between citations and the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), as well as a presence that is not captured by most publications in the field of study. Interestingly, publications with higher AASs are concentrated in the same journals. The article concludes by determining that alternative metrics can be used to complement academic impact but cannot be a substitute for it. Further progress is needed in the development of a framework that unifies both impacts.

Purpose This paper aims to map how the debate concerning the relevance of management research historically evolved to (a) determine if B-schools and management researchers have been uninterested bystanders, as critics posit, or if they have had a relevant role, and (b) discover if a pathway for management research becoming socially relevant has been established by such debate. Design/methodology/approach This study performed a citation network analysis of the scientific literature concerning the relevance of management research. The network had a total of 1,186 research papers published between 1876 and 2018. Findings The results show that from a minimal to peripheral role at the beginning and middle stages, management researchers have rather taken over this debate since the 1990s; the key components of the citation network reveal a strong convergence on what needs to be done, but no convergence on how to do it; and the debate has failed to generate actual change. Originality/value This study maps the debate concerning the relevance of management research since its historical inception using a method underused in management history research. It reveals the main path of the debate and the journals that echoed such debate.

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse Barcelona City Council's tourism policy documents to detect how, through the influence of research, different pathways are produced to achieve social impact.Design/methodology/approachUsing the case study approach, a qualitative content analysis is applied to review 31 tourism policy documents of Barcelona City Council.FindingsThe results show that the influence of tourism research on Barcelona City Council's policy documents occurs through the following pathways that drive potential social impact: the development of shared research programmes, joint projects, the creation of information exchange platforms, support for academia, the creation of debates, the founding of institutes, the referencing of scientific articles and studies commissioned directly by the City Council from higher education bodies for implementation in the city.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper is to highlight the social relevance of research and to contribute to raising awareness among researchers. The social impact of research is an under-explored topic in the field of tourism. Moreover, there is little research that conducts this analysis through policy documents.

[Purpose/Significance] In today's knowledge economy, where scientific research and innovation drive social change, accurately and scientifically assessing the social impact of scientific research achievements has become key to optimizing the global scientific research ecosystem. This article focuses on the social impact evaluation system of the international scientific research achievement. It provides in-depth analysis of typical international models and strategic guidance for China to build a more comprehensive and efficient evaluation system. [Method/Process] Based on the theoretical definition of the social impact of scientific research achievements, eight major cases of third-party evaluations were selected: the EU SIAMP, the US STAR METRICS, the UK REF, the Dutch SEP, the Italian VQR, the Canadian CAHS, the Australian ERA, and the Japanese NIAD-QE. Using a cross-national comparative analysis method, a comprehensive analysis was conducted across three dimensions: system elements (establishment time, esta

Research assessment in Humanities and Social Sciences has been always controversial. This paper aims at reviewing the changes that are taking place in the methodologies and approaches of research assessment, as well as the specific actions that can be identified in Europe. The keys of the current research assessment practices can be summarized in six points: 1. Use of complete data on scholarly outputs and development of indicators sources for journals and academic books, other than commercial databases; 2. More qualitative evaluation and / or using bottomup approaches; 3. Open access and its involvement in scientific evaluation; 4. Alternative metrics and open citations; 5. Responsible metrics; 6. Societal impact of research.

Narratives are shaping our understanding of the world. They convey values and norms and point to desirable future developments. In this way, they justify and legitimize political actions and social practices. Once a narrative has emerged and this world view is supported by broad societal groups, narratives can provide powerful momentum to trigger innovation and changes in the course of action. Narratives, however, are not necessarily based on evidence and precise categories, but can instead be vague and ambiguous in order to be acceptable and attractive to different actors. However, the more open and inclusive a narrative is, the less impact can be expected. We investigate whether there is a shared narrative in research for the sustainable economy and how this can be evaluated in terms of its potential societal impact. The paper carves out the visions for the future that have been underlying the research projects conducted within the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funding programme “The Sustainable Economy”. It then analyzes whether these visions are compatible with narratives dominating societal discourse on the sustainable economy, and concludes how the use of visions and narratives in research can contribute to fostering societal transformations.

The social web appears a promising environment to study the societal impact of research, and, although platforms such as Twitter appear to be popular to share scientific content, little is known about the outreach of scientific communication on social media. By surveying a sample of Twitter users who are also followers of communication and Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers, this article aims to understand who is interacting with researchers on Twitter and if the activity of following allows to get closer to science and research. A survey was sent to all followers of 9 active researchers, and 53 responses were collected and analyzed. According to the results, followers are mostly professionals (49%) although the higher education sector (36%) accounts for an important part of the audience. Twitter allows respondents to keep updated, feel as a part of the scientific community and gain more visibility, whereas interactions appear as an important though secondary facet of these users’ activity on Twitter. Finally, participants consider that they do not have influence on the scientific process, maybe because the flow of information on Twitter occurs mostly as retweeting in an unidirectional fashion. More research is needed in order to understand better interactions and engagement on social media before they can be quantified and measured as indicators of societal impact of research.