STEPS Centre research: our approach to impact
STEPS Centre research: our approach to impact
复制标题
STEPS 中心研究：我们的影响力方法
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Nathan Oxley
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Ely;Nathan Oxley
近年来，研究的“影响”在英国的政策议程上急剧上升。但是“影响”到底是什么意思呢？研究人员和其他人如何应对新的“影响议程”？我们如何才能最好地规划、监测和报告影响？本工作文件试图通过回顾对“影响”的各种理解，并描述ESRC STEPS中心在第二个五年资助阶段使用的方法，来回答其中的一些问题。特别是，我们借鉴了我们调整和采用“参与式影响路径分析”（PIPA）的缩小版的经验，并反思了它作为规划与发展中国家合作伙伴开展的相对小规模社会科学/跨学科研究项目的工具的效用和潜力。在使用PIPA的过程中，STEPS中心将“影响路径”的概念与其更广泛的“路径方法”相一致，该方法侧重于知识、政治和“实现可持续发展的社会、技术和环境途径”之间复杂和动态的相互作用。通过这种方式，PIPA在阐明和探索STEPS中心项目的潜在影响方面非常有用：它帮助绘制出研究人员已知的网络，欣赏团队成员持有的不同观点，并对正在研究的叙述、网络和政策过程产生理解。尽管对影响路径进行详细的事前预测的可能性是有限的，但是使用PIPA已经帮助团队准备好最大化沟通和参与的机会，并将STEPS中心不同项目之间的研究联系起来。该工作文件还描述了如何以一种能够在研究团队中进行反身学习的方式迭代地使用PIPA。最后，我们对未来在事后影响监测和评估中进一步发展和使用PIPA的方式进行了推测。
The ‘impact’ of research has seen a dramatic rise up the UK’s policy agenda in recent years. But what does ‘impact’ really mean? How do researchers and others respond to the new ‘impact agenda’ and how might we best plan, monitor and report on impact? This working paper attempts to provide answers to some of these questions by reviewing various understandings of ‘impact’ and describing the approach used by the ESRC STEPS Centre in its second five-year phase of funding. In particular, we draw on our experience of adapting and employing a down-scaled version of ‘participatory impact pathways analysis’ (PIPA) and reflect on its utility and potential as a tool for planning relatively small-scale social science/ interdisciplinary research projects conducted with partners in developing countries. In using PIPA, the STEPS Centre has adapted the idea of ‘impact pathways’ in line with its broader ‘pathways approach’, which focusses on complex and dynamic interactions between knowledge, politics and ‘social, technological and environmental pathways to sustainability’. In this way, PIPA has been useful in articulating and exploring the potential impact of STEPS Centre projects: it has helped to map out the networks known to the researchers, appreciate different perspectives held by the team members and generate an understanding of the narratives, networks and policy processes under study. Although the possibility for detailed ex ante prediction of impact pathways is limited, using PIPA has helped teams to be ready to maximise communication and engagement opportunities, and to link research across different STEPS Centre projects and beyond. The working paper also describes how PIPA may be used iteratively in a way that enables reflexive learning amongst research teams. Lastly, we speculate on the ways in which PIPA may be further developed and used in ex post impact monitoring and evaluation into the future.