Knowing when to talk? Plant genome editing as a site for pre-engagement institutional reflexivity

Citizen and stakeholder engagement is frequently portrayed as vital for socially accountable science policy but there is a growing understanding of how institutional dynamics shape engagement exercises in ways that prevent them from realising their full potential. Limited attention has been devoted to developing the means to expose institutional features, allow policy-makers to reflect on how they will shape engagement and respond appropriately. Here, therefore, we develop and test a methodological framework to facilitate pre-engagement institutional reflexivity with one of the United Kingdom's eminent science organisations as it grappled with a new, high-profile and politicised technology, genome editing. We show how this approach allowed policy-makers to reflect on their institutional position and enrich decision-making at a time when they faced pressure to legitimate decisions with engagement. Further descriptions of such pre-engagement institutional reflexivity are needed to better bridge theory and practice in the social studies of science.

How do organisations implement research impact assessment (RIA) principles and good practice? A narrative review and exploratory study of four international research funding and administrative organisations

Background

Public research funding agencies and research organisations are increasingly accountable for the wider impacts of the research they support. While research impact assessment (RIA) frameworks and tools exist, little is known and shared of how these organisations implement RIA activities in practice.

Methods

We conducted a review of academic literature to search for research organisations’ published experiences of RIAs. We followed this with semi-structured interviews from a convenience sample (n = 7) of representatives of four research organisations deploying strategies to support and assess research impact.

Results

We found only five studies reporting empirical evidence on how research organisations put RIA principles into practice. From our interviews, we observed a disconnect between published RIA frameworks and tools, and the realities of organisational practices, which tended not to be reported.

We observed varying maturity and readiness with respect to organisations’ structural set ups for conducting RIAs, particularly relating to leadership, skills for evaluation and automating RIA data collection. Key processes for RIA included efforts to engage researcher communities to articulate and plan for impact, using a diversity of methods, frameworks and indicators, and supporting a learning approach. We observed outcomes of RIAs as having supported a dialogue to orient research to impact, underpinned shared learning from analyses of research, and provided evidence of the value of research in different domains and to different audiences.

Conclusions

Putting RIA principles and frameworks into practice is still in early stages for research organisations. We recommend that organisations (1) get set up by considering upfront the resources, time and leadership required to embed impact strategies throughout the organisation and wider research ‘ecosystem’, and develop methodical approaches to assessing impact; (2) work together by engaging researcher communities and wider stakeholders as a core part of impact pathway planning and subsequent assessment; and (3) recognise the benefits that RIA can bring about as a means to improve mutual understanding of the research process between different actors with an interest in research.