Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

“Real impact”: Challenges and opportunities in bridging the gap between research and practice – Making a difference in industry, policy, and society

2024; Elsevier BV; Volume: 78; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2023.102750

1873-4707

Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Anand Jeyaraj, Laurie Hughes, Gareth Davies, Manju Ahuja, Mousa Albashrawi, Adil S. Al-Busaidi, Salah Al-Sharhan, Khalid Ibrahim Al‐Sulaiti, Levent Altınay, Shem Amalaya, Sunil Archak, María Teresa Ballestar, Shonil A. Bhagwat, Anandhi Bharadwaj, A. Bhushan, Indranil Bose, Pawan Budhwar, Deborah Bunker, Alexandru Căpăţînă, Lemuria Carter, Ioanna Constantiou, Crispin Coombs, Tom Crick, Csaba Csáki, Yves Darnige, Rahul Dè, Rick Delbridge, Rameshwar Dubey, Robin Gauld, Ravi Kumar Gutti, Marié Hattingh, Arve Haug, Leeya Hendricks, Airo Hino, Cathy H.C. Hsu, Netta Iivari, Marijn Janssen, Ikram Jebabli, Paul Jones, Iris Junglas, Abhishek Kaushik, Deepak Khazanchi, Mitsuru Kodama, Sascha Kraus, Vikram Kumar, Christian Maier, Tegwen Malik, Machdel Matthee, Ian P. McCarthy, Marco Meier, Bhimaraya Metri, Adrian Micu, Angela‐Eliza Micu, Santosh K. Misra, Anubhav Mishra, Tonja Molin‐Juustila, Leif Oppermann, Nicholas O’Regan, Abhipsa Pal, Neeraj Pandey, Ilias O. Pappas, Andrew R. Parker, K. B. Pathak, Daniel Pienta, Ariana Polyviou, Ramakrishnan Raman, Samuel Ribeiro‐Navarrete, Paavo Ritala, Michael Rosemann, Suprateek Sarker, Pallavi Saxena, Daniel Schlagwein, Hergen Schultze, Chitra Sharma, Sujeet Kumar Sharma, Antonis C. Simintiras, Vinay Singh, Hanlie Smuts, John Soldatos, Manoj Tiwari, Jason Bennett Thatcher, Cristina Vanberghen, Ákos Varga, Polyxeni Vassilakopoulou, Viswanath Venkatesh, Giampaolo Viglia, Tim Vorley, Michael Wade, Paul Walton,

Innovation Policy and R&D

Achieving impact from academic research is a challenging, complex, multifaceted, and interconnected topic with a number of competing priorities and key performance indicators driving the extent and reach of meaningful and measurable benefits from research. Academic researchers are incentivised to publish their research in high-ranking journals and academic conferences but also to demonstrate the impact of their outputs through metrics such as citation counts, altmetrics, policy and practice impacts, and demonstrable institutional decision-making influence. However, academic research has been criticized for: its theoretical emphasis, high degree of complexity, jargon-heavy language, disconnect from industry and societal needs, overly complex and lengthy publishing timeframe, and misalignment between academic and industry objectives. Initiatives such as collaborative research projects and technology transfer offices have attempted to deliver meaningful impact, but significant barriers remain in the identification and evaluation of tangible impact from academic research. This editorial focusses on these aspects to deliver a multi-expert perspective on impact by developing an agenda to deliver more meaningful and demonstrable change to how "impact" can be conceptualized and measured to better align with the aims of academia, industry, and wider society. We present the 4D model - Design, Deliver, Disseminate, and Demonstrate - to provide a structured approach for academia to better align research endeavors with practice and deliver meaningful, tangible benefits to stakeholders.