The London School of Economics has a great project and blog on the Impact of Social Sciences (Maximizing the impact of academic research, is the sub-title). What is it all about?
The Impact of Social Sciences aims to:
[D]emonstrate how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity and informs public understanding of policy issues and economic and social changes.
In order to achieve this is will seek to:
[D]evelop precise methods for measuring and evaluating the impact of research in the public sphere. We have begun to develop quantitative metrics for measuring impact and have performed comparative analyses based on a pilot study of 120 academics pulled from a variety of social science disciplines.
Who runs this?
The programme is co-ordinated by a central team in the London School of Economics Public Policy Group and involves the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, the Sustainability Research Institute at Leeds University, LSE Health and the LSE Centre for Economic Performance.
They have already put together some very interesting products and services:
It provides a large menu of sound and evidence-based advice and guidance on how to ensure that your work achieves its maximum visibility and influence with both academic and external audiences.
- How to guides on writing titles, abstracts, using the web, how to find out if other academics are reading your work and more.
- An Investigating Academic Impact Conference (June 2011) with lots of interesting resources: you can see photos, listen to podcasts, or view presentations.
- And last but not least lots of interesting posts.