What's your research worth?

Written byElie Dolgin

| 2 min read

British grant applicants will have to demonstrate the economic or social impact of their research, according to new funding rules rolled out by linkurl:Research Councils UK;http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/ (RCUK), the umbrella body for all of Britain's seven research councils. The "impact summary," which requires grant seekers to answer questions about the wider benefits of their research, was implemented today (Jan. 15) by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Other funding bodies, including the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), will follow suit in the coming months. The Medical Research Council (MRC), which operates under a different system, was unaffected by the decision.

"The change is to underline our 'excellence with impact' agenda," Chloë Somers, a media spokesperson with RCUK, told __The Scientist__. "We recognize the fact that researchers are already doing this but we want to make it easier for them." Critics, however, argue that the initiative pushes academic research closer to a corporate model, and that it could hurt blue-skies research initiatives. "To try and make predictions about the impact of a piece of research in the early stages is going to be extremely difficult," Nick Dusic, director of the linkurl:Campaign for Science and Engineering,;http://www.savebritishscience.org.uk/ told __The Scientist__. "Most researchers won't know what the societal or economic benefit will be until after [the research] has been done, and there could be unforeseeable benefits that weren't anticipated when the research project started." Philip Esler, chief executive of the linkurl:UK Arts and Humanities Research Council;http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/ and the leader of RCUK's policy on economic impact, disagreed. "We're not trying to in any way divert researchers from doing excellent research," he told the__ linkurl:Times Higher Education Supplement.;http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=404997&c=1 __"We want them to continue to do that, and we want to encourage them to produce other benefits. We believe they will have more fulfilling careers if they do." "Excellent research without obvious or immediate impact will continue to be funded by the Research Councils and will not be disadvantaged within the assessment process," the RCUK wrote in a statement.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Sparring over UK funding plan;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/24225/
[2nd August 2006]*linkurl:UK knowledge transfer found lacking;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23255/
[29th March 2006]*linkurl:New umbrella body for British biology;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/21582/
[11th September 2003]