CSPC 2017

Panel Organizer: Eddy Nason, Ontario SPOR Support Unit

Increasingly, jurisdictions around the world are moving towards an accountability climate that requires an understanding of science policy impacts, particularly research funding impacts. Where some jurisdictions have identified an approach based on retrospective analysis of existing impacts from science (for example the UK and their Research Excellence Framework - REF), others such as Canada have taken more of a prospective approach to mobilizing knowledge towards certain desired impacts.
In this session, a panel of four high profile speakers in impact, knowledge mobilization and the use of impact information for science will discuss the ways Canada can take a more holistic approach to realizing the impact chain and measuring progress along it. This will include reflection on international experiences in measuring impacts and knowledge mobilization approaches, and how these approaches have been utilized in Canada to the benefit of science policy and the research system.
By initially laying out the different approaches taken to research and science impact in different countries, the panel will explore the values underlying different approaches to impact assessment. For example, in the UK REF, investigating the rationale for a retrospective approach in terms of both the history of impact assessment in UK science, and the value-proposition of impact information there. For the Canadian knowledge mobilization approach, identifying why Canadian science has taken this approach to identifying potential impacts. The panel will also investigate the potential overlap between the two approaches and when and why a combined approach may be of value.
The panel will also provide deep contextual detail on the current value of impact assessment of science to both decision makers (provincially and federally) and those in the science world (including researchers, funders and scientific research oversight bodies) – providing a more nuanced understanding of how any new approaches to assessing the impact of science could meet the needs of the multiple stakeholders in Canadian science.
In short, this panel has the capacity to look at the when, why and how of impact – and to provide some guidance on what next.