From intent to impact—The decline of broader impacts throughout an NSF project life cycle
From intent to impact—The decline of broader impacts throughout an NSF project life cycle
复制标题
从意图到影响——整个 NSF 项目生命周期中更广泛影响的下降
DOI：
10.1093/reseval/rvac046
复制
发表时间：
2023
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Boutilier, Sophia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Woodson, Thomas;Boutilier, Sophia
对于资助机构来说，评估科学家是否实现了他们的研究目标是很重要的。通过比较2014至2017年国家科学基金摘要和项目成果报告的代表性样本，本文调查了科学家是否获得了他们所提出的更广泛的影响。我们发现，摘要中提出的更广泛影响的数量明显高于POR中报告的更广泛影响的数量。这一趋势在所有董事和影响类型中都很常见，但影响服务于优势群体的情况除外。只有对优势群体的更广泛影响的数量从抽象增加到POR。尽管提出的影响和报告的影响之间存在差异，但我们的研究并未得出结论，即科学家在提出他们的研究时是不诚实的或不诚实的。相反，我们质疑现有框架是否有能力捕捉影响的质量，并权衡服务于边缘群体的影响与维持现状的影响的相对重要性。
It is important for funding agencies to evaluate if scientists accomplish their research goals. By comparing a representative sample of National Science Foundation abstracts and project outcome reports (PORs) from 2014 to 2017, this article investigates whether scientists attain the broader impacts they propose. We find that the number of broader impacts proposed in the abstracts is significantly higher than the number of broader impacts reported in the PORs. The trend is common across directorates and type of impact, except when impacts serve advantaged groups. Only the number of broader impacts for advantaged groups increases from the abstract to the POR. Despite the difference between proposed impact and reported impact, our study does not conclude that scientists are delinquent or disingenuous when they propose their research. Rather, we question the capacity of current frameworks to capture the quality of impacts and to weigh the relative importance of impacts that serve marginalized groups versus those that sustain the status quo.