Valorizing SSH research: Towards a new approach to evaluate SSH research’ value for society

Abstract

This paper endeavours to present the rationale for a valorising evalu¬ation of SSH research. It will start with a presentation of the results of an initial survey about SSH research evaluation in Europe, conducted within the COST Action 15137 ENRESSH (the European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities). The survey allowed us to capture perceptions about the main principles informing SSH re¬search evaluation, to advance towards a typology of different evaluation models, and to better identify the problems linked to these models. In the second part, looking at good practices and based on these prelimi¬nary results, we will present an approach that combines performance and impact in a way that can represent a solution for SSH evaluation, and possibly beyond. In the third part, we will move to an analysis of the difficulties of valorising SSH through evaluation. These have been discussed to a certain extent in the recent literature, espe-cially after different countries adopted evaluation campaigns introdu¬cing the criteria of “societal impact”. However, while these discussions concerned questions such as attribution of impact to a specific research endeavour, or technical difficulties, such as how to document impact, this paper will look more at the challenges of a fine understanding of the exact place of SSH in science and society, as a prerequisite for their evaluation.