Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2011;6(11):e27537. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027537. Epub 2011 Nov 16.
Qualitative and quantitative methods are being developed to measure the impacts of research on society, but they suffer from serious drawbacks associated with linking a piece of research to its subsequent impacts. We have developed a method to derive impact scores for individual research publications according to their contribution to answering questions of quantified importance to end users of research. To demonstrate the approach, here we evaluate the impacts of research into means of conserving wild bee populations in the UK. For published papers, there is a weak positive correlation between our impact score and the impact factor of the journal. The process identifies publications that provide high quality evidence relating to issues of strong concern. It can also be used to set future research agendas.
正在开发定性和定量方法来衡量研究对社会的影响，但这些方法存在严重的缺陷，因为它们难以将一项研究与其后续影响联系起来。我们开发了一种方法，根据研究出版物对研究终端用户的重要问题的回答程度来为其贡献度赋值，从而得出影响分数。为了演示这种方法，我们在这里评估了英国保护野生蜜蜂种群的研究的影响。对于已发表的论文，我们的影响分数与期刊的影响因子之间存在微弱的正相关关系。这个过程确定了提供与高度关注问题相关的高质量证据的出版物。它还可用于制定未来的研究议程。
