1. Karolina Lendák-Kabók Marc Vanholsbeeck
The diversity in impact conceptualization and engagement: accounting for policy, epistemic and local contexts
Karolina Lendák-Kabók
Marc Vanholsbeeck

2. Research questions
To what extent can impact be considered as a “boundary object”?
In Star and Griesemer (1989) perspective, boundary objects are “objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual-site use. They may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is key in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds.”
A term which is frequently applied to ‘universes of discourse’ through which common symbols, organizations, and activities emerge.

3. Hypothesis
Although there are some common crosscutting elements, variations in definitions/framing of impact, and in engagement can be linked to a diversity in policy, epistemic and local contexts.

4. Methodology
A sample of 30 questionnaires from CARES, with maximum diversity
Analysis grid with dimensions relating to the personal characteristics, the engagement (attitude and motivation), the definitions (framing), the policy, epistemic and local contexts

5. Commonalities in definition
Mostly positive framing of impact, even if it engages the reseacher’s responsibility
Impact as a complex notion irreductible to one definition
Role of other actors in impact creation
Framing of impact by dissociation:
Impact from SSH vs. Impact from STEM
Impact from basic research vs. Impact from applied research
Direct and short term vs. indirect and long term
Impact at ecosystemic vs. individual level
Impact as a research goal vs. impact as an outcome of research

6. Commonalities in definition
Specific SSH pathways to societal impact
Transformation of research in policies
Education as a pathway to impact
Research on researchers
fosters their critical reflexivity
contributes making them more open to new paradigms (and to more engagement into impact driven activities)

7. Commonalities in engagement
No meaningful research without engagement
Accountability: giving back to society what society funds
Contrast between high motivation and lack of local support in funding, training, dedicated services and dedicated time
Contrast between high motivation and lack of career incentives
Engagement in impact driven activities in tension with publication of articles in international top journals

8. Social worlds Stage of career
PhD candidates may feel illegitimate since inexperimented
Postdocs focus on publications and mobility make it difficult to rebuild local networks of stakeholders
Tenured professors take less risk in engaging into impact and can choose their research topics

9. Social worlds
Generation gap beteen « navel-gazers » and « entrepreneurial » ECIs
Conflicting definitions of excellence
Reject of impact to maintain dominance in the discipline
Type of research objects: perceived attractiveness to a broader audience
Type of methodology: « desk paper writing » vs. co-creation with external stakeholders
Perceived relationship between research and impact
Basic research to be preserved from impact
Impact as a potential outcome of research
Impact integrated (as research material or « inspiration ») into research (virtuous circle of impact)
Conflicting definitions of excellence = discourse universes
Excellence as academic excellence mostly theoretical >< engagement, or legitimacty for impact

10. Social worlds
Motivation: some respondents first motivated by socia impact and second by research as a tool towards it, others motivated be academic inquiry first, and impact as a potential outcome
Differences in local possibilities of funding, training, support and dedicated time
Existing policies at national or institutional level (e.g. impact required for the PhD)

11. Policy implications
Degree of convergence/divergence to/from policy driven definitions/framing of impact
from « mode 2 of knowledge production » (Gibbons et al. 1994) to « missions » (Kattel and Mazzucato 2018)
Not adressing SSH as a block while implementing the impact agenda
Taking into consideration the different impact related social worlds within SSH and their specific ways of framing and engaging into impact