To measure research impact is an increasingly important aspect in securing government funding for research activity, NRF rating, institutional ranking and the management of research output within the university sector. This has placed considerable emphasis on tracking citations of a researcher’s published works and publishing within highly-ranked journals.

What is Research Impact?

Broadly speaking, the impact of research can be academic or societal and therefore can occur within academia or beyond it. Impact has academic, societal and economic elements, which are defined as follows by the University College Dublin, in their Research Impact Toolkit:

Academic impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to academic advances, across and within disciplines, including significant advances in understanding, method, theory and application.

Societal and economic impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy, of benefit to individuals, organisations and nations. This is a broad definition and research can contribute to society in many ways.

Read more in the Research Impact library guide

How do you measure Research Impact?

Tracking citations of a researcher’s published works is only one way of measuring research impact. This can be done using author metrics, article metrics and journal metrics. These are found in databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, Google Scholar, etc. Altmetrics could also be used to get input about the number of tweets or mentions in blog posts, etc.

It is important to note that researchers cannot rely only on metrics or indicators to determine impact. Julie Bayley describes in her book, Creating Meaningful Impact: The Essential Guide to Developing an Impact-literate Mindset, that “impact is the changes we can see (demonstrate, measure and capture), beyond academia (in society, economy, environment or elsewhere) which happen because of our research (caused by, contributed to and attributable to)… but ultimately is about connecting academic research to changes in the real world.” (p.11)

A researcher’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals could therefore also be a good indication of his/her impact in the real world, but only if those works have been used to make a difference.

What type of metrics could be included in a researcher impact report?

The Library offers Researcher Impact Reports which give you an overview of your citation data from different databases and a more in-depth Power Bi report which will include information on co-authorship, contribution to SDGs, subject areas and many more. A SciVal report will also be included which give you a broad overview of your metrics, but also more specific information about international collaboration and your specific subject areas.  It is important to not look at only the basic metrics such as the H-Index, but look at a broader snapshot of what your impact might be. Please note that these are only indicators and do not necessarily measure impact “in the real world”.

How do I request a Research Impact report?

You are welcome to request a report from your faculty librarian or contact Marié Roux to coordinate the request.

Why do we refer to the responsible use of metrics?

It is best practice that quantitative evaluation (metrics, numbers and indicators) should only support qualitative and expert assessment and not the other way around. Institutions and funders evaluate researchers often only by one or two indicators, such as the H-Index. There are many reasons why this is not a responsible way to measure research impact.

Read more in the Research Impact library guide

How can you improve your impact as a researcher?

A previous blog post of 2024 summarises the answer to this question: Improve the impact of your research.

 

Please contact Marié Roux for any further questions.

Or consult the Library Guide on Research Impact.