Sior: A New Tool to Evidence Social Impact of Science

The research project IMPACT-EV. Evaluating the impact and outcomes of European Social Sciences and Humanities research (2014-2017) funded by the 7th Framework Programme of Research of the European Commission aims at developing a permanent system of selection, monitoring and evaluation of the various impacts of Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH) research. Special attention is given to the social impact of the research, defined as the results of the policies and actions based on research evidence in relation to EU2020 and all EU main targets. IMPACT-EV is contributing to enhance the visibility of the social impact of SSH research. Created within the framework of IMPACT-EV, in this paper we present SIOR, the Social Impact Open Repository. This tool has become an unprecedented data source at international level in which researchers can display, cite and store the social impact of their research results. SIOR gives rise to the international scientific debate about the scope that social research projects have or should have. One of the most important aspects of SIOR is the aim of providing not only a description of the evidence of social impact, but also to show contributions that may become useful tools for researchers to improve the impact of their current and future studies. The case of SIOR promotes new avenues to transform scientific research. On the one hand, displaying the social impact of scientific research brings about greater societal recognition and, on the other hand, gathering this information in a fully open access system greatly contributes to the dissemination of scientific knowledge to the wider society. Thus, SIOR helps boost the transformation of scientific research, developing a resource that enables viewing and valuing social improvements deriving from research projects.