Course Objective

Students who have passed this course will have
• Gained an understanding for the dimensions, processes, and effect
mechanisms of societal impact
• Gained an understanding of the possible forms to translate academic
knowledge to specific audiences (e.g., teaching, practice, policy making
…)
• Will be able to devise an impact strategy for their own academic work
in
order to address the needs of a specific audience
• Develop an understanding of the multiple available ways to generate
impact
• Reflected about quality and ethics of knowledge transfer activities

Course Content

Impact beyond academia is a core aim of any research endeavor and
currently receives increasing attention from research organizations and
science funders. In the Netherlands for instance ‘Relevance to society’
is
one of three criteria in the national protocol for research assessments.
Despite the fact that impact is a key objective of academia, it hardly
plays a
role in the education of young scholars. That is why this course
provides an
introduction to different forms of societal impact as well as to
different
quality regimes. In the course, participants learn, which strategies
scholars
can apply to have societal impact, which methods work in which cases,
and
how to develop an impact strategy that fits the specific type of
academic
work the individual scholars are engaged in.

Teaching Methods

The course is taught in two blocks: an input block where we explain the
fundamentals of academic impact and a workshop block in which students
devise their own impact strategy. Each block will cover a full day. In
between
students have to work on an assignment, which will be presented in the
second block.

Method of Assessment

• Presentation of assignments
• Written impact strategy
• Attendance obligation. Students who miss more than 20% of the time
are not eligible to pass the course.

Literature

The list of readings will be provided on the Canvas site of the course.

Target Audience

Due to the entry requirements of the programme, the courses of the
Research Master Business in Society are only available for students
registered for this master’s programme and, upon approval of the
programme director, to other Research Master programmes or PhD students.