Dr. Thomas Woodson on “Should research have societal impact? Re-evaluating broader impacts with the Inclusion-Immediacy Criterion”

On October 6, 2020, Dr. Woodson virtually presented his intriguing findings on societal research impact for the University Libraries’ STEM Speaker Series.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) mandates all grant applicants to discuss the broader impacts for their research proposals.  To measure the societal research impact, Dr. Woodson created a new Inclusion-Immediacy Criterion (IIC) framework and used it to assess a random sample of 300 Nanotechnology grants from 2013-2017 that were selected from the NSF award database.

The IIC determines if “research helps marginalized communities, reduces inequality, and encourages inclusive innovation”.

Posted in Bibliometrics, Inclusion, Research, STEM