Here's your chance to prove it. This explains why, in this study, we focus on researchers and how they approach societal impact. Last but not least, it nourishes our spirit. e0254006. It enables businesses to gain insights into customer behavior, identify trends, and . Later, entire lines of (communication) research addressed how the public deals with science, for example, the public understanding or awareness of science (PUS, PAwS), scientific literacy, or more recently the public engagement with science and technology (PEST) and the science of science communication [3033]. Copyright: 2021 Fecher, Hebing. Science, technology and innovation must drive our pursuit of more equitable and sustainable development. 0000068081 00000 n
0000004247 00000 n
Science generates solutions for everyday life and helps us to answer the great mysteries of the universe. In addition, we suggest that national innovation systems should be studied comparatively in order to understand the impact of policies and to study more closely the relationship between transfer practices and societal impact in specific disciplines. Funding acquisition, Instant access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts and more. Based on a communication-centered approach, this article examines how researchers approach societal impact, that is, what they think about societal impact in research governance, what their societal goals are, and how they use communication formats. The responses are differentiated by how much the researchers consider their work to be basic or applied research and the three disciplinary groups. 2 hours ago. here. DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-26011-7 Corpus ID: 257183748; The impact of brick kilns on environment and society: a bibliometric and thematic review. No, Is the Subject Area "Decision making" applicable to this article? They are also in our air, our food, and in our water. In scientometrics and the wider field of evaluation research, the shift towards societal impact as an assessment paradigm in science governance has been accompanied by critical reflections. Following the advent of molecular biology came the technologies and their applications. Furthermore, researchers at universities particularly disagree with the statement that their communication departments are able to reach relevant stakeholders in society: Only 15% approve compared to 28% at applied universities and 44% at independent research institutes. Moreover, it is apparent that societal goals are subject to disciplinary considerations: We show that scholars from the humanities have culture and discourse-oriented goals, social scientists have discourse-, policy- and social-justice-related goals and natural scientists have innovation- and health-related goals. RQ1 was covered by a set of items (C1) addressing researchers attitudes towards societal impacti.e., their opinions regarding the importance of knowledge transfer as part of scientific activity and at their institutions, their opinions towards a stronger weighting of societal impact in research evaluation, and the performance of their institutions communication department in reaching relevant societal stakeholders. Only 28% of the researchers from universities have used collaboration formats, compared to 53% of researchers from applied universities and 35% of researchers from independent institutes. We also find that young researchers (age 1829) are less keen on stimulating public discourse than older ones (37% in comparison to 65% for 3039-year-old researchers) or informing political decision-making (21% for young researchers compared to 48% for 4049-year-old researchers). Most of the results are presented as bivariate distributions that cross-tabulate the three dimensions from our conceptual framework with our research questions. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254006.g003. Validation, Also in 2020, the Alliance of Science Organizations issued an agreement containing four fields of action; this highlighted, among other things, scientific freedom and the need to anticipate disciplinary differences. Focus on innovation and new business for the healthcare segment, without losing sight of excellence in service. Although these concepts differ in their objectives, they generally assume a form of scientific value creation that is no longer self-sufficient and is increasingly interwoven with society. This could more adequately address the complexities of the sciences and their many publics [5, 6, 57, 63]. Of course, REF impact case studies are written to succeed in the evaluation in question [81]. Science and technology have had both a It also discusses the various challenges for science. By accepting, you agree to the updated privacy policy. In our society there are many practices and traditions which are based on ignorance and which have withheld the progress of our society. These pages outline a summative project about human impact on the environment (Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Pollution, Population Growth, Overconsumption, and Climate Change). The only transfer format that more than half of the respondents (68%) had used in the past are events (i.e., including public lectures, exhibitions, expert panel discussions). Furthermore, we found that 34% were PhD candidates, 25% were postdocs, 11% were academics without a PhD, 25% were professors and 5% were others. H\j@>,EN(I Building peace in the minds of men and women. With my research, I would like to . Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The SEP is used by research institutions to evaluate research units and focuses strongly on relevance for society as well as research quality [10, 11]. This PowerPoint goes through the food web and has a picture of the ocean food energy pyramid. In particular, we were interested in researchers perspectives on a) societal engagement as a part of scientific activity, b) whether societal impact should be considered more in research evaluation, c) the performance of institutional communication departments in reaching relevant societal stakeholders, and d) the importance of knowledge transfer at the institutions. It is striking that the disciplinary groups have quite different impact profiles: Scholars from the humanities tend to have culture- and discourse-oriented goals, social scientists have discourse-, social-justice-, and policy-oriented goals, and natural scientists have technology-, health-, and environment-oriented goals. 77 slides Science, Technology, & Society in the 20th century Sushmita Mae Leones 26.8k views 47 slides Introduction to Science, Technology and Society Christian Nel Dominguez 2.4k views 33 slides Science and technology a Shirley Valera 112.2k views 46 slides Science Technology and society Manvi Yadav 29.4k views 12 slides by. ; 13 itemsRQ2) and communication formats (i.e., Which transfer formats have you already used to communicate your results? 0000056508 00000 n
More disturbingly, in our bloodstream. Looks like youve clipped this slide to already. Only 27% of respondents think that knowledge transfer plays an important role at their institution and that their communication department is reaching relevant stakeholders in society. 0000005903 00000 n
This is an outlook on science education that emphasizes the teaching of scientific and technological developments in their cultural, economic, social and political contexts. trailer
<<2DEAD8E3B02D447FAF7FA0708E4F5675>]/Prev 581404>>
startxref
0
%%EOF
87 0 obj
<>stream
Researchers from independent institutes should in theory be able to devote more resources to transfer activities than researchers at universities and applied universities, as this latter group has teaching obligations. Search. In this paper, we focus on those who stated that their primary work location is Germany, leaving us with 499 valid (59%) cases to analyze. Overall, researchers most important societal goal is to contribute to education (69%), followed by stimulating public discourse (55%). We've encountered a problem, please try again. Search . &t#9-=-. It is evident that humanities scholars especially use social media to communicate about their research: 55% of humanities scholars approve of such methods compared to 33% of natural scientists and 38% of social scientists. In other words, science is one of the most important channels of knowledge. Founder and Leader of a startup focused on developing Rehabilitation and clinical skills . To evaluate the quality and reliability of the survey, we conducted two rounds of pretests. Regarding sociodemographic characteristics, the genders were equally distributed (50% male, 49% female, and 1% others). it is good to have more impact), we can still draw some practical conclusions: First, considering the discontent with institutional communication departments, it might be worthwhile to implement decentralized support structures on the mesolevel of research organizations. Serving a term of President-Elect 2021-2023, President 2023-2025 and Past-President 2025-2027. One of the most important effects education has on society is giving the people who live in a society the skills they need to compete in the global marketplace, and the skills they need to produce technological goods that can be sold on the open market. Methodology, Various gadgets that were thought of fiction fifty years ago previous, for instance, cell phones, microwaves, planes and various others are underestimated lately. Master of Science in International Business candidate at Grenoble Ecole de Management. Developing students capacities and Importance of Data Science. In contrast, researchers from independent institutes are most the policy-oriented ones: 54% of the researchers from independent institutes aim to contribute to political decision-making (31% at universities and 37% at applied universities). This article contributes to this discourse by addressing researchers perspectives on societal impact, that is, their opinions on societal impact (RQ1), the societal goals they associate with their research (RQ2), and the formats they use to engage with society (RQ3). Second, our results suggest that it is strongly advisable that evaluation exercises are responsive to disciplinary differences. Technology is the application of knowledge for achieving practical goals in a reproducible way. No, Is the Subject Area "Research quality assessment" applicable to this article? Initially, these focused on intra-scientific (and often bibliometric) impact. An example of this is Jong et al.s concept of productive interactions, which proceeds from the assumption that current productive interactions between researchers and societal stakeholders will improve the probability of future societal impact [64]. No, Is the Subject Area "Social communication" applicable to this article? 0000004734 00000 n
This lesson will show the revolutionary impact of science in modern. Impact of science on Man Science is a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method and research. Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. When looking at the different types of organizations, it is noticeable that researchers from applied universities are most economically oriented: 41% of the researchers from universities of applied sciences indicate that they want to contribute to economic value creation (19% at nonuniversity institutions and 17% at universities). (2) Distribution of the disciplinary groups across the prevailing institutional types. One reason for this discrepancy may be that researchers fear that evaluations will lead to additional work or that they will not adequately record their transfer activities [23, 60, 64]. For RQ1 (opinions on science communication), we asked respondents about evaluations because these would have practical implications for their working lives. Vice versa, it makes sense to examine how evaluation policies for societal impact might affect researchers communication behavior. Drawing on De Jong and colleagues and in line with the metascientific discourse on the conception of the relationship between science and society, we see societal impact as the effect of interaction between scientific and societal stakeholders [61, 62, 64]. Again, we used our coding of the REF use cases as a framework and took a close look at educational offerings, consulting, events, PR, social media, and collaborations. We show that most researchers regard societal engagement as part of their job and are generally in favor of impact evaluation. This means that learners don't have to stick to the traditional learning and teaching process. Humanities scholars (15%) and university researchers (15%) particularly doubt that their communication departments are reaching relevant societal stakeholders. It makes sense for critical evaluation research to make use of empirical work on the exchange between science and society. We designed a semi-convenience sample, which means that in principle any researcher with the link to the survey could participate. More than half of the researchers (53%) agree that societal impact should be given more weight in evaluations. Data Availability: The data underlying this study are available on Kaggle (DOI: 10.34740/kaggle/dsv/2366092). When it comes to gender, male researchers are more inclined to pursue goals that are also related to their disciplines and vice versa. In others the impact has been negative, as in the case of bombs with ever-increasing destructive power. Benedikt Fecher, Science and Society Canada Foundation for Innovation - October 24, 2006 Many neuroscience issues abut against human values The nature of the mind Mind-body-soul concepts Free will vs. determinism The ability for anyone to look into your brain and watch your mind in action Darkest secret thoughts How to relate to brain disordered 0000128395 00000 n
For example, many associations for the social sciences and humanities in Germany expressed concern that the BMBF initiative does not take into account the current state of science communication research [24]. Respondents vary in their opinions on whether societal impact should be given more weight in research evaluations: Only 40% of the respondents from the natural sciences agree compared to 65% for the social sciences and 58% for the humanities. My scientific work included a large number of studies on the history of art, history, and theory of culture in modern society, which required initiative, motivation, and a diverse set of skills, such as . Science may be a boon if war can be abolished and democracy and cultural liberty preserved. Overview Join one of the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tanks! One concerns the impacts that culture has on science and technology, while the other concerns the influences of science and technology on culture. The REF case studies are available in a public database (https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/). The Impact of Technology on Society Description: Webster's New World Dictionary & Thesaurus . 53% agree that societal impact should be given more weight in research evaluations. While these conceptualizations do not employ societal impact as an evaluative paradigm, they have paved the way for new thinking about the relationship between science and society. The German Council of Sciences and Humanities, an advisory body to the German federal government, called for more recognition for knowledge and technology transfer [18]. The main goal for natural scientists is to drive technical innovation (59%), followed by making a contribution to education (58%), and contributing to the physical and mental wellbeing of the population (46%). Software, Independent institutes are characteristic of the German research system. On the other hand, criticism is directed towards the representation of society, whose benefit has often been reduced to economic indicators (e.g., revenue, jobs) and not the broader societal impact [5, 63]. during the Neolithic Period, about 3500 years BCE,in Mesopotamia and Egypt, two cradles of ancient. They have been there for decades, we just didn't know it since our analytical capabilities were limited to the parts per billion level (ppb), a thousand times larger than parts per trillion (ppt). The Impact of Materials on Society subcommittee partnered with faculty from engineering, liberal arts and sciences and education at the University of Florida to develop an introductory level course suitable for undergraduate and community college students. They are rather transfer-oriented and usually specialized in certain fields (e.g., arts, technology, or business). Challenges today cut across the traditional boundaries of disciplines and stretch across the lifecycle of innovation -- from research to knowledge development and its application. 6 The response rate for this survey is unknown because we are unable to determine the number of residents who . It should be noted that science is part of society and both the sciences and their publics have differing ideas about robustness and usefulness [32]. This confirms the descriptive observations: Humanities scholars (p = 0.01) and social scientists (p<0.01) are significantly more likely to agree that societal relevance should be part of research evaluation compared to natural scientists. Conceptualization, The Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society has membership from Maine to Georgia and west to the Great Lakes. Science is the greatest collective endeavor. Yes 0000003342 00000 n
Visualization, In general, we considered agreement as the last two answer categories of the scale (agree + strongly agree) and report on this. This, however, corresponded roughly to the general gender distribution in German academia [85, 86]. Science must respond to societal needs and global challenges. Through the Topic. Get in touch with your inner creative with our downloadable resources. 0 vo
endstream
endobj
58 0 obj
<>
endobj
59 0 obj
<>stream
Prompts About the Impact of Physics on Society: Female researchers are more interested in supporting minorities (41%) than male researchers (25%). A steam turbine with the case opened, an example of energy technology. However, female researchers agree that societal relevance should be part of research evaluation more often than male researchers (62% compared to 44%). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Both male and female researchers regard public engagement as part of scientific activity (89% and 90%). Expertise in sustainable livelihoods, food and nutrition security, mobile connectivity. Students are always looking for inspiring presentation topics for their academic assignments because employers look for people who have exc Until the 1970s there was no doubt among policymakers that public investment in research would have a positive societal impact. To further differentiate societal benefits and formats, we conducted a qualitative prestudy (see Method section). This supports many theoretical reflections about the epistemic conditions for societal impact and the different roles that disciplines occupy in society [36, 56, 87]. We differentiated between three dimensions of explanatory variables: By looking at these dimensions, we aimed to understand how these factors might influence the interaction between scientific and nonscientific actors in terms of the opinions researchers hold, the societal goals they pursue, and the formats they use to communicate about their research. Societal impact, and hence what academic research offers the economy, society, culture, public administration, health, environment and overall quality of life, is gaining in importance in science governance [2, 5, 6]. This can ensure that students find the . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254006.g001. In 2014, the UK became the first country to assess the societal impact of research as part of a national assessment. The topic has, however, been prominently discussed: Referring to the announcement that the next EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation will focus more on the societal benefits of research, the Alliance of Science Organisations stated in 2018 that any such evaluation should be differentiated and tailored to the demands of science [15]. Advertising has a positive effect on society in some ways as it promotes prosperity.Advertising has negative effects on society as it is propaganda. Principles of an Attractive Headline 1. Two scholarly discourses are particularly relevant for the subject of this study: 1) the discourse in communication and science and technology studies (STS) on the relationship between science and society and 2) the discourse on societal impact measurement in scientometrics and evaluation research. The goals are either to improve policies that affect science (policy for science) or to improve policies that can benefit from scientific understanding (science for policy). This concerns the organization of societal impact at scientific institutions. Few fields are expanding as much as nursing these days. The range of disciplines we asked about (A5) was based on the classification of the German Research Foundation [84]. 0000002003 00000 n
B\$ $>Q
(%3F`LKjI/MB /qd&8 i!ew*JP~DG/ `02@d`f`xxqCC2cga|Dk7ogUpo`dg0h+P*o2|hgs
p ` PG
endstream
endobj
49 0 obj
<>>>
endobj
50 0 obj
<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/TrimBox[0.0 0.0 612.0 792.0]/Type/Page>>
endobj
51 0 obj
<>
endobj
52 0 obj
<>
endobj
53 0 obj
<>
endobj
54 0 obj
<>
endobj
55 0 obj
<>
endobj
56 0 obj
<>
endobj
57 0 obj
<>stream
Yet, there is a lack of comparable empirical evidence on one particularly decisive group of actors in the dialogical rationale, that is, academic researchers. 3,136 passengers and 4,135 cyclists are observed at twelve typical bus stops in Nanjing, China. In the following, we describe the instrument and its distribution, the sample design, and the analysis of the data. Something about me. impact on society of:global warming,genetic engineering,animal testing,deforestationpractices,nuclear testing and environmental legislations. Young researchers (age group 1829 years, mostly PhD students) reported less often that they aim to contribute to public discourse (37% in comparison to 65% for 3039-year-olds) or political decision-making (21% in comparison to 48% for 4049-year-olds).