The Role of Social Impact in Science Evaluation: Challenges and Contradictions

The increasing use of science to provide evidence-based support for public policy has created a growing demand for monitoring and evaluating scientific work in research centers. In this context, the notion of social impact has become key to demonstrating how scientific knowledge can address societal problems. This "impact agenda" also stems from evolving science funding models, which seek to assess research institutions through the lens of social impact.

At DINÂMIA'CET-Iscte, the Thematic Line Reflexivity, Communication, and Social Responsibility of Science has been examining these developments. Transforming how scientific work is evaluated in interdisciplinary centers like D'C, where social sciences play a central role in studying societal changes, brings forth significant challenges and contradictions. Social impact assessment requires narratives, case studies, success stories, and the involvement of actors outside the traditional scientific process. However, this agenda paradoxically responds to critiques of quantitative evaluation methods: while now incorporating qualitative approaches, it still demands objective proof of social impact, creating tension between qualitative assessments and quantitative metrics.

Documental analysis revealed conflicts between collective goals and individual researcher evaluation criteria. In precarious academic environments, researchers face a dilemma between contributing to collective success and advancing their careers. Work focused on direct social impact demands greater emotional commitment and reduces time for publications, perpetuating hierarchies where junior researchers handle fieldwork, while senior researchers, with better contracts, focus on theoretical analysis and claim lead authorship. Monitoring these dynamics also remains a challenge, affecting the evaluation of science’s social impact.

The impact agenda can thus conflict with individual evaluation criteria. So, one may: prioritize collective goals at the expense of individual conditions, perpetuating precarity and hierarchies, or fight scientific precarity, promote equality among researchers, and build a collective beyond individual contributions. Research centers could turn the "impact agenda" into an inclusive and unifying "impact culture."