Flanders and Impact

Do you also feel occasionally that you’re part of a bad joke, as I do? It goes

something like this.

Three people walk into a bar: a scientist, a politician, and a citizen. The scientist

says: „Show me the money, I’ll show you impact“. The politician says: „Show me

the impact, and I’ll show you the money.“ And the citizen just stands by and

wonders who will be providing the real answers to his problems.

Let’s see what this room can do to get us out of this situation!

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Esther De Smet - Broader Impacts Summit

- 20 April 2016

By now we all know that policy drives behaviour. So what drives Flemish research

institutes?

First the legislative context.

The Flemish HE Codex lays down the mission statement of all universities and

university colleges, which is threefold: teaching, research and socio-economic

service.

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This resulted in the 1995 Decree on the Provision of Scientific and Societal Services

further detailing this concept.

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So we now know the overarching ‘service’.

Two more sets of concepts followed – each with their legislative and policy context.

The dynamic duo ‘knowledge tranfer’ and ‘valorisation’

And ‘science communication’

Now to be clear: neither is yet ‘impact’ but both can lead to impact.

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KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER – VALORISATION

It is a concept which has been greatly misunderstood, often hijacked and even

condemned. In essence it means ‘making something valuable’. It should be

understood as a process of doing something with (scientific) knowledge so it

becomes something of value, of use to someone. Ideally this someone is not part

of the close-knit scientific community. Through the act of valorisation research

can have an impact.

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But in Flanders valorisation has been claimed to mean first and foremost ‘having

economic or monetary value’.

It is almost exclusively used in the context of the university’s Industrial Research

Fund. This approach has led to the rise in and professionalization of Technology

Transfer Offices.

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SCICOMM

Here’s the Flemish definition.

Yes, it is more than science marketing and advertising the results of research or

promoting individual scientists. SciComm is also the science of the process of the

scientific endeavour, and the science awareness.

If valorisation is the Frank Underwood of impact, scicomm is the Phil Dunphy.

For most people it remains a more softer version of working towards impact. I

attended a recent conference of scicomm people: their favourite tagline was

‘scicomm is fun!’ but they were slightly devoid of the reality of academia in which

I work.

There’s a separate – albeit very modest - funding scheme (to pay for scicomm units in all

HEI’s) + 5 year policy plan

The R&I Department’s policy on science communication has changed over the

years and is now based on three goals: STEM education, support for R&D (esp.

STEM disciplines) and the international recognition of Flemish research.

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And hey-ho, there’s even a STEM Action Plan to go along with it (joint remit of R&I

and Education)


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That was terminology. Going back to the overarching context.

Closely linked with these concepts and the underpinning legislation is the funding

mechanism, one of the most important of policy tools and drivers of behaviour.

Flemish research institutes roughly depend on four funding streams – and if you

remember anything from this presentation it’s that Flemish policy makers really like

their allocation keys and sets of indicators:

1. Governmental Block grant from Education Department – closed envelop, based on

metrics: hiring of staff

2. Governmental Block grants – competitive, based on metrics: Special Research Fund

+ Industrial Research Fund (valorisation)

3. External funding: FWO (dissemination paragraph, not a selection criterion) + VLAIO

(strategic research) + BELSPO + EU

4. Private funding (contract research)

Needless to say, the presence of this allocation model has a huge impact (or

should I say ‘choke hold’) on the academic system and how research policy is

being thought out and implemented.

It is also clear that although a university might have a threefold mission by law,

this is not being reflected in these models since the metrics are only twofold.

Research: publications, citations, number of PhD degrees

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It would be a very brave university indeed that deviates from these top-down

principles.

And a final important element: Research institutes can autonomously decide if

and how they evaluate their research quality (not like education).


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That is – in a nutshell - the context in which I as a research policy advisor have to

come up with a strategy at my university and support our research community.

Needless to say, we have already invested in publication and PhD incentives, but

also in technology transfer and interface activities.

The avenue of ‘societal value creation of research’ still feels like uncharted but

promising territory.

Sadly, as a result of this Flemish context our strategy implementation is

somewhat lacking in funds, staff and bold action.

So my role on this panel is testifying on how you get your researchers to care

about impact when the will for structural/systemic change is lacking, when taking

the easy way out and developing metrics or setting up a separate fund is not

something you want to do, when you really want to change the criteria for career

progression or research assessment but don’t know where to start.

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I’m convinced that creating the ideal setting for this does not depend on a magic

bullet solution.

It is a puzzle of coexisting tweaks to the system that go beyond the confines of

research policy – although that’s often the starting position I use when talking to

researchers.

It is about finding and building synergies with other policy and support areas

within the university such as HR, Legal and Communications.

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Essential in our policy is educating our research community but also decision makers about what societal value creation/valorization are. We want them to dare to discuss responsibilities. We are putting forward the building blocks for quality assurance and assessment based on a description of the most common types of societal value creation rather than an exercise of bean counting by way of quantitative indicators.

But it is not just a need for clarification: the next step is empowerment through

training and the provision of structural support.

Intermediaries are essential as well as setting up networks where researchers

and external stakeholders can find each other. These need to be safe yet

professional environments.

And hopefully the reward system will follow.

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That brings me to my bucket list of issues.

What are the questions that still baffle or challenge me?

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How do we deal with the inherent vicious circle? Indicators and quantification

would probably kill the wealth and creativity of social valorization types but in

our very quantified environment this seems like only way to ensure impact of

policy and change mindsets. And if we do choose a new approach to research

quality assessment, how do we deal with the fact that this may be very time-

consuming and that the efforts might seem redundant?

How do we change an assessment model which is centered around the individual

to one which looks at group level and allows diversified career tracks? In what

way do structures need to change to allow for more and better interdisciplinary

research and thus tackle the grand challenges of our time?

How do we deal with the data on all these valorization activities? Can we build

research information systems that are sufficiently user-friendly?

How do we guard ourselves from reducing societal value creation to societally

relevant research topics? How do we strike the balance between curiosity-driven

research and this constant need for accountability? How do we involve and target

all disciplines? How do we avoid that ‘societal value creation’ is exclusively SSH’s

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knowledge transfer?

How do we deal with dwindling resources and fast-market research needs? How

do we build in societal value creation into most funding mechanisms without

resorting to indicators or without establishing separate funds?

How and where do we build up the necessary ethical and legal expertise? Working

with/for stakeholders often brings very specific challenges on how to structure the

collaboration, safeguard the scientific endeavour, create the best possible impact.

And finally, a personal favourite of mine: what is the best model for institutional

support? How do we get cooperation throughout the community of support and

policy staff (on central and faculty level), create a shared responsibility? E.g. how

do we get communication experts working together on impact?


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In conclusion: I know Flanders is just a speck on the map but our researchers, policy

makers, HEI’s, and all our local and global beneficiaries of science have the same

concerns and aspirations. So it looks to me like we’re in this together and I look forward

to hearing your experiences. Let’s start the sharing of knowledge here.

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Flanders and Impact

Science

Transcript of Flanders and Impact