Productive interactions in digital training partnerships: Lessons learned for regional development and university societal impact assessment

Gender biases in the evaluation of knowledge transfer: A meta-evaluative analysis of the Spanish "Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Sexennium"

This paper analyses from a gender perspective a pilot call for evaluating academics and researcher transfer and innovation activities, launched by the Spanish Government in 2018, known as the "Knowledge Transfer & Innovation Sexennium" (KT&IS). Not only women's participation was much lower than that of men (1 woman applicant for every 3 men applicants), but also, they showed lower success rates than men in all scientific fields, with an average gap of more than 13 points. The methodology combined an exploratory quantitative analysis of the almost 17,000 applications, with a meta-evaluative qualitative analysis through interviews to key actors of the evaluation program and focus groups with evaluators. Hidden biases operating throughout and in each of the different phases of the KT&IS evaluation process were identified. This article aims at contributing to how economic and social impact of research can be fairly and fully evaluated, as well as at facilitating the design of future evaluation calls that promote the effective advancement of gender equality in all science-related activities and transfer to society.

Creating a developmental framework for evaluating RRI implementation in research organisations

The evaluation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) actions presents important challenges for the key stakeholders engaged in the process of RRI implementation, such as policy makers, programme managers, and researchers. While there is a considerable body of literature on the conceptualization of responsibility in research and a plethora of attempts to practice RRI, there is a need for increased attention to the monitoring and evaluation of case studies of RRI implementations in research organisations, in particular regarding their structural change effects. This paper aims to discuss a contextualised developmental framework for evaluating RRI implementation in research organisations, with a specific focus on achieving structural change through tailor-made action plans. The framework, developed through RRI evaluation work in the field of biosciences, adopts a systemic and process-oriented perspective, encompassing participatory, anticipatory, reflexive, and responsive dimensions. Concrete empirical examples from bioscience organizations are provided to illustrate how the framework relates to specific conditions, experiences, and solutions, demonstrating how conceptual insights have emerged from real-life practices and data analysis. While the framework was initially customized for the specific contexts of six bioscience research organizations, it holds potential for broader relevance and applicability in addressing challenges related to RRI design, implementation, and evaluation.

A bibliometric analysis of quality assurance in higher education institutions: Implications for assessing university's societal impact

This study aims to provide a bibliometric overview of quality assurance (QA) research in higher education institutions (HEIs) from 1993 to 2022 and to identify significant trends. Scopus was utilised to retrieve data from 321 selected articles from 191 different sources. The methodology included science mapping with bibliometric indicators such as citations, co-citation analysis, and bibliometric coupling. Analysis of the data was done using VOSviewer and R-package using Biblioshiny. The findings indicate an increase in the number of articles and authors per paper that highlight QA key issues, the most promising QA practices, and the topics for future research. This study has significant importance to orient HEI's QA process towards the assessment of the university's societal impact.

Assessing university-business collaborations for moderate innovators: Implications for university-led innovation policy evaluation

The growing literature on University-Industry Collaborations (UICs) highlights how learning processes get unevenly located in space, within centers of innovative activity, where the local presence of research-oriented universities plays a crucial role. Through a mixed-methods approach, this article explores the firm-level drivers of innovation and the interactions between a sample of companies and the local university in a moderate innovation EU region. Findings highlight that firms' size, sector, leadership's commitment to digitalization, and collaborations with the university explain companies' innovative performance. The article contributes to the university's societal impact assessment and discusses the implications for university-led innovation for Smart Specialization.