Having a positive impact beyond academia can often be seen as a requirement, rather than as a personal orientation to research and its potential to create social change. John E. Wilcox and Brandon Reynante reflect on their experience as social impact scholars and what it means for their research.

Our adult lives have been largely devoted to research, so it makes sense to ask, “Why do we do it?”. Our response to this question may have changed over time, but our current answer is “social impact”—that is, to have a positive impact on society (assuming some understanding of that term).

As we use the term, then, a “social impact scholar” is anyone who undertakes research largely with this objective of social impact in mind. For example, we currently do research on how education can better prepare our societies for severe climate change in the future. We also know many others admirably working on social impact through, for instance, research that aims to improve the justice system or adolescent mental health.

As we use the term, then, a “social impact scholar” is anyone who undertakes research largely with this objective of social impact in mind.

A social impact scholar differs from what we might call a “traditional scholar” who may pursue research for a range of other reasons, such as pure intellectual curiosity, filling gaps in the literature or solving puzzles, regardless of whether doing so has any social impact in the broader sense.

Why is social impact scholarship important?

While traditional scholarship is valuable and has its place, there are also various reasons why one might be a social impact scholar. The most obvious reason is that it can benefit society: other things being equal, being a successful social impact scholar by definition results in more good for others, and so it is good to pursue it for that reason. However, another reason is more self-centred: a range of literature suggests humans can derive happiness and fulfilment from helping and improving the lives of others, so social impact scholarship potentially benefits the scholars themselves as well. Then there are also institutional reasons social impact might matter for scholars: for example, many scholars may need to demonstrate social impact to secure funding or academic positions, as is the case with the UK’s Research Excellence Framework.

How is social impact scholarship different?

Defined as such, however, how does being a social impact scholar differ more specifically from traditional scholarship? Below is a non-exhaustive list of differences.

Difference #1: Success metrics

For a start, the success metrics of social impact scholarship differ. For traditional scholars, they might base the success of their endeavours on a range of traditional criteria: how many publications or citations they have, or the prestige of their places of publication or affiliation, for example. For social impact scholars, in contrast, the ultimate success criterion is societal good, and if anything else matters, then it is only in virtue of its (eventual) contribution to this goal. They seek to maximise their social impact factor rather than any traditional impact factor, like an h-index. Although such impact might not be straightforwardly measurable, obviously it could include diverse outcomes ranging from lives saved by reducing medical misdiagnoses to emissions offset by developing climate-mitigation technologies, to use some examples in our own fields. As it turns out, then, maximising social impact has a range of implications for other aspects of such scholarship, as follows.

Difference #2: Research agenda formation

For instance, one’s research agenda often forms in a specific way: namely, by identifying some societal good one is aiming for, such as reducing fatal misdiagnoses or delivering more accurate and fair criminal convictions, and then working backwards from that goal to determine what research is necessary to achieve it. This problem orientation can then give rise to other differences from traditional scholarship.

Difference #3: Accessibility

In order for one’s research to have a positive impact on some aspect of society, it needs to be accessible to those who can deliver that impact. This can have two more specific implications.

First, sometimes the research must be accessible as in comprehensible: it should often be written in a way that non-specialists can understand what the research is saying and how it is important, for instance. This can in turn require non-technical language, clear examples or detailed explanations which considerably lengthen the work. For instance, some of our work aims to carefully explain concepts, like calibration, which are familiar to specialists but not non-specialists.

research must be accessible as in comprehensible: it should often be written in a way that non-specialists can understand what the research is saying and how it is important

Second, it needs to be accessible as in available to the relevant audiences. These requirements can mean that social impact scholarship requires one to publish in outlets that are not the most prestigious if, for instance, more prestigious outlets are behind inaccessible paywalls or require concision in ways which alienate non-specialists.

Difference #4: Collaboration

Another difference of social impact scholarship is that it often benefits from collaboration with others, both so that others can contribute to the quality of the research and also so that others will be more likely to implement it for social good in their own contexts. Such collaboration may not only be with academics; it may be with public servants, volunteers or other impact-makers in the relevant domains. In this way, social impact scholarship is similar to community-engaged research and transdisciplinary research. In some areas, such as psychology, such collaboration is common, but sometimes it conflicts with aims of traditional scholarship. In traditional scholarship, for instance, if one wants to get recognition in their field for their work, then single-authorship is the best indication of their own unique contributions.

How is social impact scholarship not different?

That said, there are also arguably a number of ways which in which social impact scholars should not be different to traditional scholars. For a start, they should have no less rigour than other scholars; after all, rigour is often necessary to form accurate judgments about what really drives positive societal impact. Additionally, social impact scholars shouldn’t necessarily esteem themselves as being better people than traditional scholars: regardless of the accuracy of such an estimation, arrogance is arguably counter-productive, because if the aim of social impact scholarship is working with others to achieve social good, then a big ego may only alienate others.

 social impact scholars shouldn’t necessarily esteem themselves as being better people than traditional scholars

Of course, some might accuse social impact scholars of merely virtue signalling or pursuing impact for impure reasons, such as to enhance one’s own reputation. However, such accusations can be welcomed as tests of one’s purity if one still pursues social impact even though it invites such accusations which ironically might undermine their reputation. After all, what matters is the impact, not one’s reputation or what others think of it.

That, then, is our take on social impact scholarship, one that we hope might help others fruitfully reflect on whether or how they might like to make an impact with their research.

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