Developing Social Impact Evaluation Methods for Research: viewpoints on commercialization and sustainability

Academic institutions are nowadays considered as important drivers for national economies, since they are expected to spur innovations and thus stimulate economic growth (Weckowska, 2015; Rajalo & Vadi, 2017). These benefits may be delivered by means of industry utilizing the results of the research made in universities. For this reason, governments and national innovation policy makers are actively promoting the establishment and development of collaborative networks between universities and society, represented by industry, other private sector actors, the public sector, and non-profit organizations (Morlacchi & Martin, 2009; Perkmann et al., 2013; Rajalo & Vadi, 2017). In this way, national innovation policies nowadays often emphasize a so-called “third mission of universities”, which means that in addition to the fundamental goals of higher education and academic research, universities are also expected to make social contributions. These social contributions may include collaborative knowledge creation, transfer, and exchange between universities and external partners (Pennacchio, 2016). Policy makers are thus increasingly expecting publicly funded research not only to produce scientific and scholarly results, but also to enable clear social impacts.