Understanding societal impact through studying productive interactions

Universities are increasingly expected to complement their traditional research and training missions with that of a third mission to reflect the engagement of universities with society, through the application and exploitation of knowledge. Previous research has resulted in limited knowledge on how field specific interactions between academic researchers and societal actors relate to the societal impact of academic research. This paper seeks to assess the impact on society of the work of university research, by examining in detail several case studies taken from the field of ICT research and to address what patterns of productive interactions result in societal impact within ‘fragmented adhocracy fields’ and what implications these patterns have for societal impact assessment of these fields. Our approach proves it is possible to identify how and what researchers have contributed to social impacts. Shifting focus to interactions allows short term knowledge transfer efforts contributing to societal impacts to be assessed.