A Danish instrument to measure indicators of research impact in the field of occupational health and safety - Canadian Knowledge Transfer and Exchange Community of Practice

Join your KTE colleagues to learn about and discuss how to measure societal impact of research with Dr. Ole H. Sørensen from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark

When: Wednesday June 14, 2023, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. EST

Where: By Zoom, where you are

Register here.

The National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark (NFA) has developed and tested an instrument- the Societal Impact Instrument: Occupational Health and Safety Research (SII:OHSR), to quantitatively measure indicators of societal impact of applied research at research institution and program levels. Successful validation of the instrument in the multi-disciplinary field of occupational health and safety (OHS) has been demonstrated. NFA has now used the instrument to monitor progress in societal impart for three years. In this presentation, Dr. Ole H. Sørensen will explain the ideas behind the instrument: how it measures three knowledge transfer dimensions- reach, usefulness and use of knowledge; and how it produces an aggregate index of societal impact for the research institution as a whole, and sub-indices for included research programs. Advantages and limitations will be discussed, and recent adaptations of the instrument will be highlighted. Dr. Sørensen would welcome ideas from the audience, for further developments of the instrument and its use e.g. re-localization to other contexts.

Participants will learn:

how indicators can be developed using KT dimensions to measure societal impact of research
how impact instruments can be used to detect areas for improvement
how to target the needs of different types of knowledge brokers
how research programs and the context for developing them differ in Denmark

Dr. Ole H. Sørensen is a senior consultant at the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark (NFA). He is responsible for research on NFA’s societal impact. Ole has been working as a researcher in the OHS field for 10 years and in societal impact research for 3 years. He has also been an OHS consultant for 5 years. He has a PhD in the field of sociology of technology and industrial networks.