Social innovation to be assessed in measuring the impact of publicly-funded R&D

Social innovation, or social entrepreneurism, has become a buzz among policymakers, scientists, and citizens throughout the world. One reason is that social challenges are becoming more numerous, important and urgent, and the cost of not solving them is increasing dramatically, Yuko Harayama deputy director of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, said during a panel on social innovation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington last week. “We’ll need to design and remodel institutions to handle social innovation,” she told delegates. “This is a challenge.”

University R&D to be judged by impact on social innovation

This week the UK announced plans to replace the Research Assessment Exercise by which the value and impact of publicly funded R&D carried out at universities is assessed. From 2013 a new system, the Research Excellence Framework, will be introduced, requiring universities to provide case studies and prove the impact of their work beyond current metrics such as number of publications and citations. This could include interactions with the local community, or how a particular piece of medical research has been translated through to improve healthcare.

The new framework will include three categories by which research quality will be assessed, output at 65 per cent of the weighting, environment, 15 per cent and social impact at 20 per cent.

Similarly, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is starting to change the way data on grants and other funding is reported, to give increased impact to the contribution research makes to social innovation and value creation for society as a whole. The lack of an adequate system to measure the results of science funding was a particular sore point in terms of demonstrating the impact of the US economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Measuring social innovation

“The challenge for the US and other governments is that the data infrastructure to describe the impact of science investments doesn’t exist,” said Julia Lane, director of the NSF’s Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) programme, which studies science and innovation policy and develop new and improved data sets. “We are being pushed hard to report back to citizens, but [at the same time] scientists are being pushed to decrease their reporting burden. Forty percent of their time is spent on administration.”

The NSF’s Star Metrics project is an attempt to address the data infrastructure and the impact of science investments, she said. “We are able to tell who is directly affected by initial science funding. This was a major step forward, at least in the US, even though this is a linear function.”

The project has identified 14 data elements for reports that are generated automatically within the administrations of grant-receiving universities to capture the impact of the ARRA, for example. It is a voluntary programme. So far 65 universities have signed on to participate, and 45 already are reporting data. Early results show jobs per award, jobs per million dollars spent, occupational distribution and other factors.

The project is now moving into phase two, the collaborative development of measures of the impact of federal science investment on scientific knowledge, using the well-worn metrics of publications and citations; social outcomes, such as the effect on health and the environment; economic growth, through patents, start-ups and other measures; and workforce outcomes, which considers student mobility and employment.

Lane said US science agencies are now moving toward common reporting standards, which has already been done in Brazil and seventeen other countries.

“This will help scientists do their job better, which is important for innovation,” said Stefano Bertuzzi, health science policy analyst in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Return on Investment Program in the Office of Science Policy. “This measure doesn’t yet know the benefit to society … that’s the next step. We do need to bring this to a local level, such a direct jobs and payroll county-by-county and in congressional districts.” Another benefit he pointed to is seeing the revenue generation and social benefit related to NIH involvement in the discovery and development of drugs such as the rheumatoid arthritis treatments Enbrel and Remicade.

Getting citizens involved

European countries are moving to get citizens involved. Belgium jumped onto the trend in July 2000, when the Flemish Parliament founded the Institute Society and Technology (IST) , an independent, autonomously functioning organisation for technology assessment. Johan Evers, senior project manager, said his group, comprising six people, takes a problem-driven rather than technology-driven approach, and is prospective and anticipatory rather than evaluative. It is involved in 5 - 6 projects per year, looking, for example, at the impact of technology on low-income people. The aim is to get societal demands and needs to influence the direction of R&D and the design of innovative products, processes, and services.

The UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology, and Arts (NESTA) also is bringing in the public through neighborhood challenges and other means. The idea is to have a project with a broad scope that is not solved by a central government, but rather supported by the government through community-led programmes in what Laura Bunt, public and social innovation advisor NESTA, calls “mass localism.” “The government can create an environment for community-led innovation,” she said. The project has also launched a GBP1million social challenge prize that tackles problems such as climate change.

Japan also is active in social entrepreneurism through the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), a Japanese government-backed think-tank focused on social systems. “We have more than 60 projects going on. This is design-thinking and issue-driven innovation,” said Tateo Arimoto, director-general of RISTEX, which is part of the Japan Science and Technology Agency

The OECD recently addressed social innovation in a preliminary report, “Fostering Innovation to Address Social Challenges” based on a workshop in 2009 in Paris.

A separate group, Ashoka, a worldwide, non-governmental organisation of social entrepreneurs elects a few hundred life-long fellows each year for projects that aim to take a big leap ahead. The group has 2,500 social entrepreneurs in 70 countries.

Fellows must meet five criteria: new ideas, creativity, entrepreneurial quality, ethical fibre, and social impact. One example is fellow Albina Ruiz in Peru. “She created microenterprises that reuse solid waste,” said Karabi Acharya, who heads the work to determine the impact of Ashoka. “By ten years after their election, 83 percent of fellows have changed a system in at least one way.”