The Swiss Approach to Societal Impact is Good, but Might Become Even Better: A Comment on Ochsner

Abstract In my comment to Michael Ochsner's essay on societal impact of research, I argue that Michael is right to point to the complexity of societal impact and to the pitfalls of overly simple measurement frameworks as the one introduced in the UK's Research Assessment Framework. I also convey with him that the lack of such framework does not mean that societal impact is not an important dimension of Swiss research policy. However, I observe that there is currently a stronger concern at the political and societal level for accountability and measuring more systematically societal impact, as related to the emergence of societal grand challenges. Accordingly, I suggest that political scientists should be more proactive and suggest novel ways of measuring impact and of integrating impact assessment in the evaluation of research programs, funding agencies and higher education institutions.