The value of understanding impact
Understanding the impact of research can be beneficial for future (research) projects. A good substantiation of impact can support SEP evaluations, grant applications, annual reports and personal (HR) evaluations. It also leads to greater awareness of your research group or institute, which facilitates finding research partners. The insights gathered can also illustrate how research findings are translated by scientific and societal partners and policymakers, and find their place in the public debate.
Available tools
SciVal
SciVal provides access to various data on scientific and societal impact of research. The data is imported from Scopus and includes data from universities and research institutes worldwide. Using SciVal, you can, among other things, look at the number of citations, make comparisons with other researchers or institutes (benchmarking) and analyse collaborations with other institutes. You can also see which SDGs your research can be linked to.
Altmetric Explorer
Altmetric Explorer mainly provides insight into the social relevance of research. It tracks in which (social) media and policy documents scientific publications are mentioned and with what frequency. You can see separately for each source how much attention there is for research. The social attention is also summarised in one figure, the so-called Altmetric Attention Score.
VU Research Portal
The VU Research Portal provides information about research at the VU. Simple questions can usually be answered with information from the portal. The portal does not offer many possibilities for more in-depth analyses. For this, you can use Scival and Altmetric Explorer.
Are you looking for information on the impact of a large research group or faculty? Team Research Intelligence helps answer questions about the academic and social impact of VU research groups and faculties.
