Quantifying the impact and relevance of scientific research

Sutherland, W. J., Goulson, D., Potts, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-980X and Dicks, L. V. (2011) Quantifying the impact and relevance of scientific research. PLoS ONE, 6 (11). e27537. ISSN 1932-6203 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027537

Abstract/Summary

Qualitative and quantitative methods are being developed to measure the impacts of research on society, but they suffer from serious drawbacks associated with linking a piece of research to its subsequent impacts. We have developed a method to derive impact scores for individual research publications according to their contribution to answering questions of quantified importance to end users of research. To demonstrate the approach, here we evaluate the impacts of research into means of conserving wild bee populations in the UK. For published papers, there is a weak positive correlation between our impact score and the impact factor of the journal. The process identifies publications that provide high quality evidence relating to issues of strong concern. It can also be used to set future research agendas.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/24990
Identification Number/DOI	10.1371/journal.pone.0027537
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Sustainable Land Management > Centre for Agri-environmental Research (CAER)
Publisher	Public Library of Science
Publisher Statement	The Public Library of Science (PLoS) applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) to all works it publishes. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.
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