NEWS
Investing in academic excellence ‘leads to research impact’
A
report for HEFCE by Digital Science reveals that research of scholarly significance underpins its societal impact.
‘Publication patterns in research
underpinning impact in REF 2014’ is the first report to analyse all research publications submitted for research assessment between 1988 and 2014.
The study found that at least 42 per cent of the research cited in impact case studies in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) had been submitted as research outputs to the various prior research assessments – suggesting that research of scholarly
‘ The analysis covers almost one million submitted research outputs’
significance leads to societal impact, but also emphasises the broad base of research from which impact stems.
The analysis covers almost one million submitted research outputs and more than 35,000 impact case study references across 25 years and five assessment exercises. The report considers the relationship between submitted outputs (as evidence of academic research
quality) and impact case study references (as evidence of societal and economic impact). It explores what the data says about the selection of research outputs for assessment, and about changes in selection behaviour as a response to assessment.
Key findings include: l Over time, journal articles have become a more commonly submitted output type (when compared with books, conference proceedings and other media). This is despite the fact that HEFCE analysis comparing quality profile by output type found that monographs were awarded the highest proportion of four-star scores;
l In early research assessment cycles, the research outputs submitted tended to be those published towards the end of the publication period. In science and engineering recent exercises saw submissions from earlier in the cycle in all relevant disciplines for all institutions;
l Of the impact case study references with digital object identifiers, 42 per cent were submitted to Research Assessment Exercises or the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) as research outputs; these are evenly spread between publication years from 1996 to 2013;
l Earliest references are skewed towards recent publications for social science and
ALPSP announces innovation awards finalists
The Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers has announced the shortlist for the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing 2016: l An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma from SAGE Publishing;
l Cartoon Abstracts from Taylor & Francis;
l The Crossref Metadata API; l Knowledge Unlatched; l ORCID; and
l Wiley ChemPlanner. Chair of the judging panel, David Sommer, said: ‘We were delighted to receive more than 40 submissions for this year’s awards, with incredible breadth and depth. After careful consideration, we have selected a shortlist that we believe includes some of the most significant products and projects that are challenging the norm in scholarly communications and
22 Research Information AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016
helping to transform publishing.’ Audrey McCulloch, chief executive of ALPSP, noted: ‘The ALPSP Awards allow us to celebrate the amazing creativity and innovation that abounds in scholarly publishing today. Each year they go from strength to strength and we can’t wait to see the shortlist in action at the conference in September.’ The finalists will be given the opportunity to showcase their
products in a rapid fire session at the ALPSP Conference on Wednesday 14 September. The winners will then be announced at the Conference Awards Dinner on Thursday 15 September.
The 2016 ALPSP
International Conference will be held at the Park Inn London Heathrow, UK, from 14 to 16 September. See our preview on page 28.
@researchinfo
www.researchinformation.info
humanities. In science and engineering, the date of the earliest reference in each impact case study is uniformly spread through the eligible publication period;
l The overlap between case study references and submitted outputs for assessment appears to be higher in more applied areas, and lower in the core humanities and pure sciences; and
l For science and engineering, the case study references have highest overlap with the research outputs submitted in early cycles. The overlap between case study references and assessment outputs submitted to REF2014 is higher in social sciences. Steven Hill, head of research policy at HEFCE, said: ‘The innovative analysis in this report gives us, for the first time, evidence that research of all types leads to wider benefits for the economy, society and the environment. The findings emphasise the importance of supporting a diverse range of research to deliver impact.’ Jonathan Adams, chief scientist and head of consultancy at Digital Science, added: ‘This huge body of work provides us with uniquely rich data on research activity, submitted outputs and case studies across 25 years and five assessment exercises. This is one of several perspectives that Digital Science has created on these data. The data will be available for the research base to mine in order to assess, uncover and understand the scholarly significance of the UK research base.’
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
