New report reveals impact of social sciences and humanities research

CG Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills has led a project team who have identified the impact of social sciences and humanities research using the UK’s Research Excellence Framework.

A team of researchers at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) delved into around 4,000 Research Excellence Framework 2021 (REF) Impact Case Studies to assess how the social sciences and humanities research produced at universities in the UK provides real-world impact on the economy, policy, industry, technology and enriches everyday lives.



The project report, published by the British Academy and Academy of Social Sciences, and online interactive dashboard (accompanied by an open-source code library) reveal the substantial impact of UK social sciences and humanities research, within the UK and globally.

The UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 is the system used to assess research excellence in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The results are used to allocate around £2 billion of public funding to university research each year. A key element of the process for research teams is demonstrating the real-world impact of their research, making the REF2021 the largest structured research impact assessment worldwide.

The LCDS project team applied a novel mixed-method approach combining Large Language Models (LLMs) with qualitative assessment and validation to analyse the impact of all 4,000 social sciences and humanities research Impact Case Studies that were submitted by UK HEIs to REF2021 (all submissions to the Main Panels C for Social Sciences and D for Arts and Humanities as well as to Unit of Assessment (UoA) 4 for Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience). Results from the model were then described and refined by an extensive qualitative effort, looking at all case studies individually. A qualitative team also conducted interviews with panel reviewers and authors of Impact Case Studies, which allowed readers to make sense of the algorithmic mapping of impact and bring the themes to life with concrete examples.

The report concludes that social sciences and humanities research in the UK is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, fuelled by a handful of core funders, and has a global impact that goes beyond the boundaries of economics, policy, and technology. The analysis also suggests that the breadth of impact from social sciences and humanities research warrants new impact type categorisations in the REF framework.

Professor Mills commented: "It was fascinating to uncover the breadth of real-world impact from social sciences and humanities researchers within government and industry to the improvement of everyday lives.

"Our use of generative AI, combined with human coding and qualitative research, allowed us to discover over 80 core areas of impact, all of which can be explored on our interactive online dashboard. Highly impactful research is also clearly more inter- and multidisciplinary, with social sciences and humanities researchers often making impact within medical and physical science realms, highlighting the importance of this type of research within STEM and beyond."

The case studies, topics, and impact of research that are outlined in the report can be explored further in the project’s online dashboard that brings together the quantitative and qualitative elements of this analysis. Users can view Impact Case Studies for each of the 84 topics, explore their top funders and global impact beneficiaries, and get an overview of the UK HEIs researching these different areas of the social sciences and humanities. The dashboard also provides access to the project’s enhanced REF database and rich, licensed bibliometric information used in the analyses and results, which users can download and use free of charge.

Professor Mills presented the main findings of the report and online dashboard on 25 January at a British Academy and Academy of Social Sciences online launch event. An academic paper from the LCDS will follow in the coming months. Read the full story from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science: New report reveals impact of social sciences and humanities research

Further reading

The SHAPE of research impact (The British Academy)

The SHAPE of research impact online dashboard

Access the code to reproduce this project

From NHS innovations addressing inequalities in the labour market: new report reveals real-world impact of humanities and social sciences research (The British Academy)

Posted 01/02/2024 09:17