Research impact 101
Short introduction to my new white paper providing an overview of six key issues in the assessment of research impact
Academics are experts in their own areas of research. However, 20 years of experience in research evaluation as an academic administrator and as provider of the Journal Quality List and the Publish or Perish software have taught me that academics are just as likely to fall prey to myths and fallacies as the (wo)man in the street.
My latest white paper (linked here) therefore provides you with a Research Impact 101 course, divided into six sections. It helps you to find your way through the maze of research impact, drawing on terminology that we are all familiar with in our own research. The first section disambiguates different areas of research impact by focusing on three specific academic roles. The five remaining sections focus primarily on academic research impact.
- define and operationalize your constructs carefully,
- distinguish research impact from related concepts,
- avoid strawman arguments,
- test empirically rather than rely on anecdata,
- avoid the ecological fallacy by carefully considering levels of analysis,
- understand that the research process is as important as the research outcome.
Resources
- How to Improve your research profile, impact, and reputation
- How to write Effective promotion applications
- How to Avoid a desk-reject for your article
- How to use Social media to support your career
- How to build Inclusive research cultures
Impact indicators
For a great summary of impact indicators, see this 27-page taxonomy. It was created by Amanda Cooper and Samantha Shewchuk and presents an overview of more than 400 indicators for the Social Sciences and Humanities. The authors gathered these indicators from more than 100 research impact resources in more than 32 countries and sorted them into six categories: Scholarship, Capacity building, Economy, Society and Culture, Practice, and Policy.
Relevant books
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Copyright © 2023 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Mon 6 Mar 2023 09:00
Anne-Wil Harzing is Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London and visiting professor of International Management at Tilburg University. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
