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As pressures to maximize research funding grow, biomedical research funders are increasingly tasked with demonstrating the long-term and real-world impacts of their funded research investments. Over the past three decades, research impact assessments (RIA) have emerged as an important tool for analysing the impacts of research by incorporating logic models, frameworks and indicators to track measures of knowledge production, capacity-building, development of research products, adoption of research into clinical guidelines and policies, and the realization of health, economic and social benefits. While there are currently several models for RIA within the literature, less attention has been paid to how funders can practically select and implement a RIA model to demonstrate the impacts of their own research portfolios. In this paper, a literature review was performed to understand (1) which research funders have performed RIAs of their research portfolios to date; (2) how funders have designed their assessments, including the models and tools they have used; (3) what challenges to and facilitators of success have funders found when adopting the RIA model to their own portfolio; and (4) who participates in the assessments. Forty-four papers from both published and grey literature were found to meet the review criteria and were examined in detail. There is a growing culture of RIA among funders, and included papers spanned a diverse set of funders from 10 countries or regions. Over half of funders (59.1%) used a framework to conduct their assessment, and a variety of methods for collecting impact data were reported. Issues of methodological rigour were observed across studies in the review, and this was related to numerous challenges funders faced in designing timely RIAs with quality impact data. Over a third of articles (36.4%) included input from stakeholders, yet only one article reported surveying patients and members of the public as part of the assessment. To advance RIA among funders, we offer several recommendations for increasing the methodological rigour of RIAs and suggestions for future research, and call for a careful reflection of the voices needed in an impact assessment to ensure that RIAs are having a meaningful impact on patients and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide policymakers, local planners, investors, and other interested parties with a discussion of economic impact studies concerning event tourism, conventions, and their infrastructure. This paper will discuss the main methodologies underlying economic impact studies, the factors that increase and decrease economic impact, and the components that can create a defendable study. doi:10.1300/J452v08n04_06 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tourism has become an important economic sector in many parts of the world, and many regions, states, and local areas have identified expenditures by visitors as a potential source of economic growth. Because visitor spending can contribute to the local economy, many communities seek to enhance tourism and visitor-oriented activities. As a result, estimates of the economic impact of event tourism are of interest to a wide variety of interested parties. Economic impact analyses of sports facilities and other entertainment events have come under increasing criticism in recent years. At the same time, visitors to sports events, festivals, and other visitor-oriented and event related activities can produce very substantial economic impacts for host communities. This article examines key considerations and issues that affect and are critical to reliable estimates of the economic impacts of events and event tourism. doi:10.1300/J452v08n04_05 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The role of life cycle analysis (LCA) in identifying and measuring the environmental impact of extended supply chains, i.e., chains involving both forward and reverse activities, is very important. Particularly, in the case of alternative supply chain management policies or scenarios, life cycle analysis may significantly help to quantify the environmental result of these alternatives for the purpose of comparison and decision making. It is debatable, however, whether such comparison is always possible. Indeed, life cycle analysis has often raised discussion and disagreements, especially regarding the stage of Impact Assessment (valuation), and, until now, there is no generally accepted framework of analysis. In this paper, different models are used in order to extend the usability of the Environmental Design of Industrial Products method of Impact Assessment. Furthermore, research results that are produced by applying different methods of Impact Assessment are examined in the cases of the recovery and disposal chains of lead–acid batteries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]