Open AccessPlaying the fields: Theorizing research impact and its assessment
Author(s) -
Kate Williams
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
research evaluation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1471-5449
pISSN - 0958-2029
DOI - 10.1093/reseval/rvaa001
Subject(s) - cognitive reframing , field (mathematics) , credibility , symbolic capital , sociology , legitimacy , context (archaeology) , politics , positive economics , value (mathematics) , power (physics) , capital (architecture) , perspective (graphical) , social science , public relations , epistemology , political science , economics , social psychology , law , psychology , philosophy , mathematics , artificial intelligence , history , archaeology , computer science , biology , paleontology , quantum mechanics , machine learning , physics , pure mathematics
How research is assessed affects what types of knowledge are valued, incentivized, and rewarded. An increasingly important element of contemporary research evaluation is the measurement of the wider impact of research (e.g. benefit to society, culture or economy). Although the measurement of impact has been highly contested, the area is under-theorized and dominated by pragmatic research policy imperatives. Informed by a sociological perspective, this article intervenes in this context by reframing research impact as the attainment and maintenance of capital (i.e. symbolic power or status) in various fields beyond academia. It argues that research impact occurs at the intersection of these fields of power. The article shows that impact involves various combinations of capital from the scholarly field, the field of politics, the field of application, the media field, and the economic field, which provide credibility, authority, utility, visibility, and weight, respectively. In exploring the forms of worth and value that underpin the pursuit of legitimacy in these fields, the article provides a new theoretical framework for understanding research impact and its assessment.