A recent study named “Social impact in social media (SISM): A new method to evaluate the social impact of research”, led by Ramon Flecha (UB School of Sociology), Cristina Pulido, Gisela Redondo-Sama and Teresa Sordé-Martí introduces the SISM (Social Impact through Social Media) methodology and defines the Social Impact Coverage Ratio (SICOR) as an innovative approach to assess the social impact of research shared on social media platforms, specifically Twitter and Facebook. The co-creation of SISM (2018) responded to the demand of DG Research (CE) to the Dr. Flecha, when he was hired as Chair of the scientists who developed the criteria of societal impact for the Horizon Programmes, SISM played an important role in the first months of the pandemic fostering the evidence about COVID in Western and Chinese social networks. Now, it is being used in very different fields.
The authors argue that measuring the social impact of research is increasingly necessary for ensuring its relevance to society, especially as the scientific community becomes more aware of the need for social improvements stemming from research.
The study identifies a gap in the existing methodologies for evaluating social impact, which often lack widely accepted conceptual frameworks. By utilizing the SISM methodology, the authors aim to gather both quantitative and qualitative evidence of social impact shared across social media. The SICOR is specifically designed to measure the percentage of tweets and Facebook posts that provide insights into actual or potential social impact in relation to the total amount of social media data collected for specific research projects.
The analysis, which includes ten selected projects, reveals that only 0.43% of the analyzed tweets and posts contain evidence of social impact. However, some projects demonstrate a much higher SICOR of 4.98%, while others show no evidence of social impact whatsoever. These findings suggest that social media can serve as a vital platform for disseminating social impact evidence, with users acting as intermediaries to make this information more visible.
Overall, the research emphasizes the need for continuous development of methodologies that effectively measure social impact. By fostering a richer dialogue between science and society, researchers can enhance the visibility and relevance of their work, ultimately contributing to societal well-being and improvement.
