How much do social scientists care about making impact outside of academia?

When we talk about how to help science benefit the world outside of academia to meet societal needs, we often talk about incentive and reward structures, problems with research assessment, and skills training to support communicating with policymakers, practitioners, and the public. But sometimes we sidestep the question of whether researchers actually care about the “outside” impact of their work.  

To answer some of these questions directly, Sage surveyed more than 3,000 people in 117 countries. Sign up to receive the white paper to read through the results.  

The report will cover responses to questions such as:  

  • How important is it that research is valued and/or applied outside of academia? 

  • How important is it that research is published in a highly cited journal? 

  • How does your institution reward efforts to apply research outside of academia? 

Jonathan Fugger