Impact of Technology on Society. ;:iH/> Pn3lpnF}kgUU@e/m;,mN[.VkuW_ymG;PnTk|lh e|.##U*uv'Whq*ebNC hb```e``Y B@16:h'dH8:nPh`UvH^MM.r In 2014, the UK became the first country to assess the societal impact of research as part of a national assessment. For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click While natural scientists chose goals in the spheres of environment and health as well as innovation and economic value creation, social scientists goals centred more on civic society and social justice as well as politics and public discourse. Access our PowerPoint Ebooks here and become a brilliant presentation designer. Overall, 89% of the respondents agree that public engagement is part of scientific activity. For example, many associations for the social sciences and humanities in Germany expressed concern that the BMBF initiative does not take into account the current state of science communication research [24]. This supports many theoretical reflections about the epistemic conditions for societal impact and the different roles that disciplines occupy in society [36, 56, 87]. Contributed equally to this work with: From this, we conclude that societal goals are best explained by the disciplinary backgrounds of researchers. It contributes to ensuring a longer and healthier life, monitors our health, provides medicine to cure our diseases, alleviates aches and pains, helps us to provide water for our basic needs including our food, provides energy and makes life more fun, including sports, music, entertainment and the latest communication technology. Focus on innovation and new business for the healthcare segment, without losing sight of excellence in service. Founder and Leader of a startup focused on developing Rehabilitation and clinical skills . Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, Germany, PDF | On May 1, 2020, Taya D Henry and others published Belief in innocence: How factors underlying wrongful convictions influence comfort and confidence in exonerees' innocence | Find, read and. Think you'll never have to ask for help? Again, we used our coding of the REF use cases as a framework and took a close look at educational offerings, consulting, events, PR, social media, and collaborations. 3,136 passengers and 4,135 cyclists are observed at twelve typical bus stops in Nanjing, China. Basic researchers do not use advisory formats (14% vs. 47%) or collaborations (17% vs 39%) anything as often as applied researchers. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254006.g001. As far as researchers individual characteristics are concerned, it is notable that social media is used more by younger researchers, indicating that social media will likely become more important as a means of engagement. In addition, there are two further points of criticism concerning the concept of societal impact: On the one hand, critics point to the inadequate representation of the complexity of science, for example, because impact logics of the natural sciences are used as a yardstick for evaluations [6, 57]. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. fGoals of Science, Technology and Society Enabling students to formulate a critical understanding of the interface between science, society and technology. 0000001096 00000 n Of course, REF impact case studies are written to succeed in the evaluation in question [81]. Much research on the interfaces between science and society consists of various relevant case studies. The topic has, however, been prominently discussed: Referring to the announcement that the next EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation will focus more on the societal benefits of research, the Alliance of Science Organisations stated in 2018 that any such evaluation should be differentiated and tailored to the demands of science [15]. Equal proportions of respondents37% eachregard contributing to informed political decision-making and to the physical and mental wellbeing of the population as a societal goal associated with their work. The distinction between different types of research organizations (i.e., universities, applied universities, independent institutes) is important for this study. Informed written consent was obtained from the participants in this study. Formal analysis, 2. Resources, The outbreak is a major destabilizing threat to the global economy. This mirrors previous findings suggesting a certain decoupling between central transfer infrastructures and researchers [38, 39] and leads us to hypothesize that there is a certain mismatch between individual and institutional commitment. 5.0. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254006.g003. Conceptualization, Copyright: 2021 Fecher, Hebing. Community Life In this paper, I explore how one might understand the way advances in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology impact employment and education, with the ultimate goal of possibly predicting when these changes are likely to occur. In this regard, interactions are deemed productive if encounters between researchers and societal stakeholders lead to knowledge that is academically sound and socially valuable [62, 64]. In this paper, we focus on those who stated that their primary work location is Germany, leaving us with 499 valid (59%) cases to analyze. We've encountered a problem, please try again. 48 0 obj <> endobj xref 48 40 0000000016 00000 n Our results add to the ongoing scholarly discourse on societal impact. Science, technology and innovation must drive our pursuit of more equitable and sustainable development. Here's your chance to prove it. Applied universities are Germany-specific tertiary education and research institutions. H\j@>,EN(I For instance, the Leibniz Association, a union of 96 nonuniversity research institutes, adopted a new mission statement for the transfer of scientific knowledge to society, the economy, and politics in 2019 [20]. &t#9-=-. Others have argued that evaluations of societal impact are prone to methodological shortcomings [23, 54] and might have unintended behavioral effects [55, 56]. Three research questions guided our analysis and structured the presentation of the results; when analyzing each question, we use our three dimensions of explanatory variables (i.e., content, organization, individual) to structure and compare the results. Researchers from applied universities are especially likely to have used advisory and collaboration formats. Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Martin (2007 . In this article, we introduce two technologies. So when we speak of the impact of science on society we are speaking about the more advanced countries, and when we speculate on the future, it usually concerns the same areas of the world. Cinema films can do a lot to eradicate these evils. The original question text was How strongly do the following statements apply to you?. We combined the approving answer categories to calculate the approval rates. They are typically independent of universities and focus on specific fields of research; scientists at these institutions are not obliged to teach. Respondents vary in their opinions on whether societal impact should be given more weight in research evaluations: Only 40% of the respondents from the natural sciences agree compared to 65% for the social sciences and 58% for the humanities. SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY STUDIESScience, Technology, and Society Studies, or STS, is an interdisciplinary field of academic teaching and research, with elements of a social movement, having as its primary focus the explication and analysis of science and technology as complex social constructs with attendant societal influences entailing myriad epistemological, political, and ethical . These pages outline a summative project about human impact on the environment (Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Pollution, Population Growth, Overconsumption, and Climate Change). Search. The notion of societal impact as an (effect of) dialog is useful in the context of this study, because it allows us to move from pure utilization and reception research to examining the anticipated societal impact of researchers. In recent years, new approaches have been developed that specifically address the SSH [6, 61, 62]. (1) To what extent do researchers from the three disciplinary groups (natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) consider their work as basic or applied research? Often, these relationships are viewed from one of two opposite directions. Younger researchers use social media to communicate about their research more than older researchers, and male researchers particularly tend to use advisory formats. ; 6 itemsRQ3). Science and technology has made possible for the production of cars, aircrafts, ships, boats, etc that has made the transportation of people and good easy and convenient. Bertrand Russell In 'Boredom or Doom in a Scientific World', United Nations World (Sep 1948), Vol. To conclude, we find that researchers use a variety of formats to communicate results. In addition, we suggest that national innovation systems should be studied comparatively in order to understand the impact of policies and to study more closely the relationship between transfer practices and societal impact in specific disciplines. Citation: Fecher B, Hebing M (2021) How do researchers approach societal impact? 0000070111 00000 n DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-26011-7 Corpus ID: 257183748; The impact of brick kilns on environment and society: a bibliometric and thematic review. We used the 13 goals that we identified by coding the REF use cases as a framework (e.g., supporting legislative decision making, driving technical innovation, preserving cultural heritage, or protecting the environment). This can ensure that students find the . Furthermore, researchers at universities particularly disagree with the statement that their communication departments are able to reach relevant stakeholders in society: Only 15% approve compared to 28% at applied universities and 44% at independent research institutes. In Germany, where the present study was conducted, there is no evaluation exercise comparable to the REF, ERA, or SEP. DBU Digital Business University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany. Colorful Retro Vintage Illustration Animated Medical Technology Education Sci No public clipboards found for this slide, Enjoy access to millions of presentations, documents, ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more.