NEWS

Now on line: our library on social impact assessment!

 

We are happy to announce the launch of our library on social impact assessment. In our library you can find titles of articles, reports and guidelines on social impact assessment. The library is still in development; however we welcome you to browse around.

If you know of a publication that should be registered, please inform us via info@siampi.eu

 

Revised SIAMPI approach

 

In December 2010, SIAMPI has discussed a revised approach for the assessment of social impact with an invited audience. The SIAMPI team would like to thank all participants for their contribution. It will help to develop a much sharper version of the SIAMPI approach than otherwise would have been possible. This final version will be presented early 2011.

 

The revised approach is based on case studies in different fields (nanotechnology, health, ICT and social sciences and humanities) and different countries (UK, Netherlands, France, Spain).

 

In the case studies, SIAMPI looked at the three main parts of its assessment framework:

 

1. Productive interactions between researchers and relevant societal stakeholders:

• Direct, in the sense of “personal” interactions involving direct contacts between humans,
• Indirect interactions through some kind of material “carrier” (publication of texts, exhibitions, models, films),
• Financial interactions occurring when potential stakeholders engage in an economic exchange

2. The relationship between productive interactions and social impact

 

3. Approaches and tools for the evaluation of social impacts that are used locally

 

From these case studies, the SIAMPI team has concluded:

• Productive interactions are indeed resulting in social impact, but they are not always a necessary condition.
• Regarding the focus on social impact achievement we found differences between fields and countries.
• Social impact (changes in behaviour) can be shown through instances of success stories (best practices).
• Social impact can be distinguished from other impacts such as economic, environmental or technical, but there are no clear borders between the concepts.
• There is a growing awareness among researchers and research organisations of the importance of social impact, but in many cases there seems to be no clear incentive to collect data on social impact.
• There is a growing awareness among stakeholders of the importance of finding the right contacts, the right productive interactions, with researchers.

For more information, see SIAMPI documents