The Search for Impact Indicators

Abstract

The rising demand for policy-relevant impact indicators is a product of two relatively recent developments: the success of science indicators in monitoring the achievement of intrinsic (cognitive) goals of science, combined with the advent of political initiatives that seek to improve the performance of science in attaining extrinsic (social) goals of science. The search for policy relevant impact indicators, while it will continue to benefit from scholarly research in social studies of science, presupposes an appropriate accounting scheme that facilitates the organization of impact indicators. One such accounting scheme—the social knowledge system (see Holzner et al., this volume)—has demonstrated its practical utility by drawing us closer to a programmatic goal of the National Science Foundation: the establishment of a system of social impact of science (SIS) indicators (see Dunn et al., this volume) that improves our understanding of science and the way it affects the world around us.