SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a change that will cause mixed reactions, UK research funding proposals no longer need "impact" statements.
UK researchers will, however, benefit from no longer having to submit a "Pathways to Impact" plan or complete an "Impact Summary" when applying for cash from UKRI – the umbrella organization for the UK's seven research councils. The Pathways to Impact requirement, which had been in place for around a decade, was controversial. But for grant applications made from 1 March 2020, researchers will not have to submit. The UKRI currently invest a total of £7bn into British science each year
"The removal of 'Pathways to Impact' will be broadly welcomed by the many grant-writing physicists whose heart sank at the thought of churning out two pages of boilerplate on the ill-defined socioeconomic impact of their proposed research," says Physicist Philip Moriarty from the University of Nottingham. "Yet despite being a vocal opponent of it for many years, I feel it's important to recognise that it played a role in shifting attitudes regarding the broader implications of academic research. For one thing, the 'impact agenda' led to a greater – albeit, often rather opportunistic – interaction between science and the arts and humanities. Hopefully this interdisciplinary activity will continue in its absence".
The US National Science Foundation requires a "Broader Impacts" statement in its grant applications.
Grant proposals are generally a big time sink for scientists, and the "impact" statement seems like it needs the thickest helping of buzzwords, exaggerations, meaningless generalities, and unfounded optimism. But society legitimately wants to know what it's getting out of the research. Maybe cool results, publications, and productivity metrics are enough?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @06:46PM (3 children)
I used to work in academia in the UK (the lesser known single by the Sex Pistols), in the course of setting up some computers for one research group, I idly asked what they were up to. After getting a potted version of their research, I sat, thought about it for a couple of minutes, and pointed out a couple of rather nasty military applications for what they were doing, much to the horror of the lead researcher...
The problem I've noticed with a lot of Scientists not working overtly on defence/military/sponsored by EvilCorps research projects is that they usually have an unsophisticated 'idée fixe' about their work and its potential application(s), and especially once the grant and 'toys' were in place, they tended not to think about any other potentially darker or negative (for given values of those words) applications for it.
Filling in one of these 'impact statements' at least forced someone attached to the propsed research to have a think about it, well, in theory it did anyway...
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday February 01 2020, @08:45PM
It's good if academics take a hard look in the mirror while thinking about impacts of their work, but grants are not the place to do it. They have to do it on their own time. Grant applications are by their nature vehicles for self-promotion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @10:49PM (1 child)
I especially liked my friend's PhD thesis topic which was to design a robotic bird feeder that tracked the center of mass of a group of hens and threw feed at them. No secondary use for that technology that I can think of....
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Sunday February 02 2020, @12:06AM
Multiple grenades thrown at a group of soldiers .... nah unpossible.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII