Evaluating research beyond scientific impact: how to include criteria for productive interactions and impact on practice and society

Currently, established research evaluation focuses on scientific impact -that is, the impact of research on science itself. We discuss extending research evaluation to cover productive interactions and the impact of research on practice and society. The results are based on interviews with scientists from (organic) agriculture and a review of the literature on broader/social/societal impact assessment and the evaluation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. There is broad agreement about what activities and impacts of research are relevant for such an evaluation. However, the extension of research evaluation is hampered by a lack of easily usable data. To reduce the effort involved in data collection, the usability of existing documentation procedures (e.g., proposals and reports for research funding) needs to be increased. We propose a structured database for the evaluation of scientists, projects, programmes and institutions, one that will require little additional effort beyond existing reporting requirements. Keywords data assessment, documentation, interdisciplinarity, organic agriculture, practice, productive interactions, research evaluation, social/societal impact, sustainability, transdisciplinarity