About the project

Monitoring tool and assessment process generate synergies

The SynSICRIS team is developing a monitoring tool and an assessment approach for public funded projects. These tools are intended to better capture the potential societal benefits of application-oriented research. We want to make the societal benefits of research and development more visible in the scientific community as well as in practice and society.

The monitoring tool and assessment approach are to be used in research funding and by research institutions. There, they support impact-oriented research and funding processes and create synergies.

The monitoring tool and assessment approach provide a basis for helping researchers and research institutions to increase the acknowledgement of their societal achievements in the scientific community in addition to their scientific impact.

The monitoring tool and assessment approach should lead to results that are relevant to practice and facilitate the networking of research with practice and society.

Our contribution to society

With these objectives, the project wants to offer a solution to a current problem: On the one hand, there is an increasing demand in society for answers from research and development to current societal challenges. Accordingly, research funding is also focussing more on societal benefits.

Fundamental considerations

Changed orientation of research documentation

The monitoring tool collects data on the achievements of funded research and development projects, making it possible to assess the potential societal benefits of research at an early stage.

The development of the monitoring tool is based on the following fundamental approach:

Information on societal benefits is collected where it is already communicated, namely between public research funders and project participants.
Information is collected and prepared in a targeted manner so that it can be used for project monitoring, for subsequent project evaluation, for knowledge transfer and for networking researchers with practice and society.
When the monitoring tool is used, the application and report texts that have been necessary to date in research funding can be partially replaced. In this way, the added value of a structured collection of information can be achieved without additional effort.

Targeted view of potential societal benefit

Project evaluation builds on the modified research documentation. The evaluation criteria we have developed for ex-post project evaluation can be used to assess the projects' achievements in terms of their potential societal benefit. They are suitable for the variety of different types of projects, innovations and funding programmes.

Added value for different actors

The monitoring tool and the assessment process offer new perspectives and opportunities to different actors in the knowledge and innovation system.

Benefits for project participants

Your project planning, project implementation and project documentation are supported by the monitoring tool.
The integrated impact pathway facilitates impact-oriented project planning and provides an overview of project achievements.
The monitoring tool broadens the perspective on their research achievements that go beyond scientific publications. Project achievements with societal relevance become visible, such as their interactions with actors from the field of action, results prepared in a target group-oriented manner and their contributions to innovation and transformation processes.
The results of the project evaluation help to increase the acknowledgement of their achievements in addition to the scientific impact.

Benefits for research funders

The system offers them a new kind of opportunity for impact-oriented monitoring and assessment of funded projects. The monitoring of projects, networks and transfer processes is supported.
Information on projects and programmes can be researched, aggregated and visualised in a variety of ways. This also facilitates the processing of requests from governmental institutions.
Research funding organisations can easily provide comprehensive information on transfer processes and impact potential for external programme evaluations.

Benefits for actors from knowledge transfer, practice and society

Information collected in the monitoring tool, including the results from the project assessments, can be adapted for dissemination and thus made accessible as an information platform in the long term.

In this way, the tool makes it easier for actors from knowledge transfer, practice and society to search for new ideas and solutions and promotes networking and exchange:

Research results released to the public and prepared for specific target groups are accessible in the long term. They can be found via common search engines or by searching directly in the tool.
The information platform will make it easier to find networks and potential project partnerships.
The monitoring tool provides feedback opportunities from practitioners and other stakeholders. Assessments can be made, for example, on workshops, practice-oriented publications and the applicability of results.