Demonstrated societal relevance and impact

In contemporary social science research, the concepts of societal impact and societal relevance are increasingly emphasised. Funding agencies demand that applicants give an account of the potential or expected impact, in order to consider research funding. Quite aside from the question of whether this is good or not for academic research, assessments of societal impact are nowadays one of the important facets of research evaluations, and a task that we have also been given.

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The debate about how to measure and score impact is inconclusive, however. Documentation of societal impact comes in many different forms. Research might lead to, e.g., policy changes, developments via media coverage and public debate, new working tools within a field of activity, or the manufacturing of new products. The documentation of such influence can be difficult to evaluate, however, and we need to also bear in mind that post-publication use of research depends on factors that are often beyond the control of the researchers themselves. These difficulties are common and should be considered when judging this panel’s endeavours to evaluate the societal impact of Norwegian Sociology, This implies that the ‘best practice’ examples described here should be viewed as illustrations only, not as systematic results.

For SAMEVAL, the evaluation of Norwegian social science (and Sociology) research, all institutes and research groups were asked to submit examples of impact cases. The instructions from the RCN were as follows:

‘Impact as an effect on, change or benefit to:

· the activity, attitude, awareness, behaviour, capacity, opportunity, performance, policy, practice, process or understanding

· of an audience, beneficiary, community, constituency, organisation or individuals

· in any geographic location whether locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.

Please note the following requirements for reporting impact:

· The research underpinning the impact cases should be anchored within the research group.

· Both the research and the impact should have been produced within the last 10 – 15 years. Priority should be given to more recent examples.’

As a discipline, Sociology has always had close connections to the subjects of study, and it would be odd to find Sociology to be a discipline lacking in societal impact. Moreover, in Norway the history of Sociology is profoundly intertwined with the development of the welfare state, as shown by the presence of strong research institutes and their extensive production of commissioned work for ministries and other organisations involved in policy work, at the national and sometimes international level. Furthermore, and particularly in more remote locations, sociological research activities are often based on local or regional needs for knowledge and understanding. Following from this, it was no surprise for the panel to find many good examples of societal impact in the cases submitted with the self-assessments.

In total, 58 different cases of impact were submitted to the Sociology panel, by both institutions and research groups. The panel has discussed and considered all impact cases and, among them, we have chosen a group that we see as good examples of ‘best practice’. That is not to say that other assessed cases were not good, merely that, in these examples, the impact is evident and clearly presented and with detailed documentation. Our selected examples also reflect the variation of themes addressed by sociological research in Norway. For our selection, we considered the presence of detailed documentation of reach as well as significance, indicators of evidence of impact from the research on activities, attitudes, awareness, capacities, opportunities, performances, policies, practices, processes or understanding of an audience, beneficiary, community, constituency, organisation or individuals involved.

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The selected impact cases for Sociology are described and assessed below:

Several of Fafo’s projects have links to thematic priorities in the Norwegian Government’s Long-term Plan for research and higher education. Fafo has provided evidence of very relevant and extensive dissemination of research results, e.g. on labour policy. Labour market research has for many years been a cornerstone of Fafo. Within this theme, Fafo has undertaken research on socially relevant topics, such as wage formation, collective institutions, working time, regulation of the labour market etc. This research has been used as a knowledge base for the government in white and green papers;

it has been delivered as commissioned work for government commissions, and researchers within this research field have been appointed to government commissions. As examples of direct influence on government decisions, Fafo mentions the measures to protect whistle-blowers and the guidelines on control and surveillance of workers established by government agencies and the social partners.

A study from Institute for social Research (ISF) on equal pay included a field experiment on ethnic discrimination in hiring, using fake applications to estimate how many more ethnic Norwegians were invited to an interview compared with applicants with Pakistani-sounding names with equal merits.

This method is well known, and has been used extensively in international studies on discrimination, but this was the first Norwegian study. The results made headlines in Norway, were cited in government commission reports, and in discussions in parliament, and they have furthermore become a standard reference in Norwegian politics when the issue of discrimination in the labour market is discussed. One strength of the case is that the attention builds on a dissemination strategy that combines scientific and popular science publications, the latter in several different forums.

The NINA impact case study on ‘carnivore conflicts’ was notable for its concern with the impact of research on informing the public debate relating to large carnivores. These conflicts are sociological and involve issues of identity, class, change and rural-urban divides, and the sociological research on large carnivores has recognised them as such. Sociology researchers have made efforts to inform the public and to shape the nature of the often heated debate through the publication of numerous op-ed and debate pieces, as well as giving interviews to the mop-edia, speaking at public meetings and engaging in debates on research findings with those with opposing interests. These contributions stem from a range of research on large carnivore conflicts, comprising ethnographic and multidisciplinary projects as well as evaluation studies and attitudinal research. It has also informed government environmental policy.

NORD Research Group: Climate Resources and the Environment. Professor Hovelund’s scientific research on the effects of climate change on polar regions is widely quoted in academic and policy documents. She has sat on important committees at the national (The Norwegian Governmental Commission on Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change (2008–2010) and international level, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where she was Lead Author in Working Group II, for the Fifth Assessment Report. Her influence, which is admittedly difficult to isolate, is described as both direct and indirect. The evidence primarily consists of references to the research in dozens of different documents and her participation in committees and commissions advising and making policy.

Nordland Research Institute (NRI) has played a role in the development of new penal sanctions for young offenders between the ages of 15 and 18, i.e. on youth punishment and youth monitoring.

Restorative justice constitutes an important part of these new penal sanctions. Today, NRI’s evaluation of problem-oriented policing and restorative justice, commissioned by the Norwegian National Police Directorate, is part of the syllabus at the Norwegian Police University College. The lead researcher was

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invited to discussions with the commission appointed to revise the act regulating the Norwegian mediation and reconciliation services.

Institute of Transport Economics (TØI) provided three impact cases, which are in line with its mission of developing and disseminating transportation knowledge of scientific quality and practical application. One case was on the evaluation of speed cameras and how TØI’s research had a crucial impact on the continued installation of section control, which in turn is expected to save substantial numbers of lives on Norwegian roads. The case was debated in the Norwegian parliament and has also been broadly discussed in the media. The second case was on the evaluation of a large ‘Share the road’

sign, which was shown to improve driver and cyclist safety behaviour. Following the evaluation, the sign has been installed along numerous rural roads without cycle paths in Norway that are frequently used by cyclists. The final case – The Handbook of Road Safety Measures – is widely used by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration as a tool for road planning and cost-benefit analyses. It includes 147 types of road safety measures and summarises the current state of knowledge about their effects on road crashes and injuries. The Handbook has been published internationally in Russian, Finish, English (Elvik et al., 2009, see below) and recently in Portuguese and Spanish.

From the University of Bergen, we chose a study on prison practices. The impact case on opiate maintenance treatment (OMT) in Norwegian prisons is a good example of a target-specific impact beyond academia that is directly linked to specific research with clear results and that is then communicated to the relevant target group, which, in turn, changes some of its practices based on the findings. Moreover, the effectiveness of the changes is analysed in academic research. The study was an ethnographic analysis of OMT in a Norwegian prison. It showed that increasing control in the OMT programme actually led to opposition from prisoners and eventually to more prisoners dropping out.

The findings were presented to prison governors and staff, and two Norwegian prisons then introduced a less intrusive control regime in their prison-based OMT programmes. The researchers are conducting a pre/post-study to determine whether the change actually reduces drug use in these facilities.

Capacity building among police officers and border guards in Bulgaria was studied by the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law. During 2015 -2016, the department was partnered with the Bulgarian NGO Risk Monitor to implement capacity building among police officers and border guards in Bulgaria. Bulgaria has in the last few years become a transit country for migrants, especially from Syria, traveling north to apply for asylum. Violence towards migrants and lack of identification of especially vulnerable migrants in transit are regarded as problems by the Bulgarian authorities and the international community. This gave rise to a need for capacity building among government officers and private security personnel working along the southern border. The project resulted in a series of dissemination events for Bulgarian police officers and border guards that created an arena for exchange and reflection. Participants stated that they had learned more about migration and vulnerability, and that this would have an impact on their work.

Family policy is an area involving many policy processes and measures, and a field where Professor Ellingsaeter at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Social Sciences holds a prominent position, in Norway as well as in the broader sociological community. Her research field covers the development of parental leave systems in the Nordic countries, work-family reconciliation, ‘cash for care benefit reforms’ and childcare issues, as well as more general comparative research on Nordic family policies.

As an expert, she has participated and headed policy processes that have had a documented impact on Norwegian family policies. The presented case describes her participation in two government committees that evaluated and proposed policy reforms, i.e. regarding changes to the Children Act concerning the regulation of parental custody, permanent residence and access rights, leading to an Official Norwegian Report and ensuing law reforms that followed the commission’s recommendations

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on several points. She was also head of a government expert commission appointed in 2015 to evaluate and propose reforms to the Norwegian family policy system of cash transfers and services.

The results from a qualitative study (‘ImmEnt’) at Uni Research Rokkan Centre of immigrant women and men who had started their own business in a rural area were spread through a number of different dissemination activities (e.g. two web documentaries). The project has had an impact on municipalities, politicians and other stakeholders, encouraging a perspective where immigrants and refugees are viewed as potential entrepreneurs. The results from the study pointed in particular to the importance of viewing entrepreneurship as a collective family-based process (rather than an individual one). In concrete terms, the project has led to the start-up of business courses for immigrants, as well as generating collaboration with municipalities and the co-production of applications for funding.