Understanding the relative valuations of research impact: Applying best-worst scaling experiments to survey the public & biomedical/health researchers

研究理事会“鼓励研究人员从一开始就考虑他们的研究对经济和社会的潜在贡献，以及开展适当和具体的知识交流影响活动所需的资源”。作为资助申请的一部分，研究人员必须提交一份由推荐人和专家小组成员同行评审的“影响之路”部分。同样，供资委员会将使用个案研究方法作为卓越研究框架的一部分来评估影响。案例研究将由学术同行和非学术专家进行审查，提供私人、公共和第三部门的视角。然而，在评估这些影响索赔的充分性/质量时，审查员目前不能利用受益人(即普通民众)或研究生产者(即生物医学和卫生研究人员)的意见的全面证据来对其建议进行限定或证明其合理性。目前尚不清楚受益者如何评估研究影响，这些价值观在不同群体中有何差异，更根本的是，英国民众是否了解研究影响。在缺乏对研究受益者和资助者的价值的了解和评估方法的情况下，指导研究人员评估影响和研究资助者评估此类影响的政策依赖于薄弱的经验基础。这项研究旨在通过改进和采用一种被称为最佳-最差标度(BWS)的基于调查的方法来解决这一差距，以分析普通人群和研究人员对研究影响的相对评估。这项研究将侧重于生物医学和健康研究，并将有助于实现MRC资助研究的目标，即“就学术研究和MRC对此的贡献提出用户/受益者的意见”。拟议的研究包括5个阶段：-识别和分类影响的案头和定性研究。以案头为基础的全面审查将编目各种类型的影响和将其分类的模式。然后，我们将在四个公众焦点小组和24个生物医学和卫生研究人员的访谈中完善和发展这一分类。这一阶段的成果将是一个概念框架，其中包括与生物医学和健康相关的不同类型的影响，以及每种影响类别的不同强度，供BWS调查使用。-制定量化调查。在第一阶段的基础上，我们将设计和测试一种调查工具，以得出不同类型影响的相对排名。问卷将通过认知访谈进行测试，并通过与公众和研究人员进行试点的完整实地工作程序进行测试。这一阶段的成果将成为最终的调查工具。-与研究人员和公众进行实地考察。我们将使用一个在线小组调查1000名公众和现有的MRC大股东名单，调查500名健康和生物医学科学家。该阶段的输出将是用于分析的数据集。-对研究人员和公众偏好的分析。分析将包括两个步骤。首先，我们将进行审查和探索性统计分析，以确定需要在建模工作中考虑的关联和趋势。这将包括关键社会经济和人口变量的样本构成，并检查受访者对调查的理解(他们是否能够回答问题)。其次，我们将开发一个BWS模型，以(I)得出普通公众以及卫生和生物医学科学家的影响声明的完整排名，以及(Ii)探索两个利益相关者群体的偏好一致的程度。这一阶段的成果将是这项研究的主要结果。--报道和传播。调查结果将通过多种渠道广泛传播给政策和研究界，包括同行评议的出版物、政策简报和视频。

Research Councils "encourage researchers to consider the potential contribution that their research can make to the economy and society from the outset, and the resources required to carry out appropriate and project specific knowledge exchange impact activities". As part of their funding applications, researchers must submit a 'Pathway to Impact' section which is peer reviewed by referees and panel members. Similarly the Funding Council will be assessing impact using a case study approach as part of the Research Excellence Framework. Case studies will be reviewed by academic peers and non-academic experts providing a private, public and third sector perspective. However, in assessing the adequacy/quality of these impact claims reviewers cannot currently draw on comprehensive evidence of the views of beneficiaries (i.e. the general population) or the producers of research (i.e. biomedical and health researchers) to qualify or justify their recommendations. It remains unclear how beneficiaries value research impact, how such values vary across different groups and more fundamentally if the UK population understands research impact. In the absence of knowledge about - and methods for assessing - values of beneficiaries and funders of research, policy that directs researchers to estimate impact and research funders to value such impacts rests on weak empiric foundations. This study aims to address this gap by refining and adapting a survey-based approach known as Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) to analyse the relative valuations of research impact as perceived by the general population and researchers. This study will focus on biomedical and health research and will contribute to the MRC's objective to fund studies that "Deliver user/beneficiary views on the contribution of academic research and MRC input to this".The proposed study comprises 5 phases:- Desk and qualitative research in the identification and classification of impacts. A thorough desk based review will catalogue various types of impacts and models for classifying them. We will then refine and develop this classification in four focus groups with the general public and 24 interviews with biomedical and health researchers. The output of this phase will be a conceptual framework with different types of biomedical and health related impact and different intensities of each impact category for use in the BWS survey.- Development of quantitative survey. Based on the first phase we will design and test a survey instrument to elicit relative ranks of different types of impact. The questionnaire will be tested through cognitive interviews and the full fieldwork procedures through a pilot with the public and researchers. The output of this phase will be the final survey instrument.- Fieldwork with researchers and the general public. We will use an online panel to survey 1000 members of the public and the list of existing MRC grantholders to survey 500 health and biomedical scientists. The output of this phase will be a dataset for analysis. - Analysis of researcher and public preferences. The analysis will involve two steps. First we will conduct a review and exploratory statistical analysis to identify associations and trends that require consideration in the modelling work. This would include sample composition across key socioeconomic and demographic variables and checking respondents' understanding of the survey (whether they were able to respond to the questions). Second we will develop a BWS model to (i) derive a full ranking of the impact statements by the general public and health and biomedical scientists, and (ii) explore the extent to which preferences are consistent across the two stakeholder groups. The output of this phase will be the study's main findings.- Reporting and dissemination. Findings will be widely disseminated to policy and research communities using a number of channels, including peer reviewed publications, policy briefs and videos.