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Impact literacy is the understanding of research impact in terms of a junction of three elements: 'what', 'how' and 'who'. 'What' refers to impact endpoints, that is, the medium- to long-term impacts or even short-term effects that occur during or immediately after research. 'How' refers to the understanding of how impact is created, in other words the interactions required. 'Who' focuses on which stakeholders need to be integrated into a network of interactions to contribute to impact. This study focused on the 'what' of impact, specifically on the understanding of research impact by two funders of agricultural research in South Africa. Members of specialist committees at the two funding organizations were asked, through a survey, to rate several structured items mapped on a research impact classification scheme. They could also provide their own ideas on what impact is. Committee members from both organizations viewed research impact primarily as an effect on the individuals and groups in the industry that they represent. They generally did not consider research impact as an effect on researchers, nor did they place specific emphasis on the societal effects of research. The 'what' of research impact was found to imply a series of effects, where the different effects build on each other. Linking these effects to the 'how' and 'who' of impact will require the construction of impact pathways. Funders should take responsibility for pushing research results to a distal level by planning 'who' will do the push, 'how' it will be done and managed, and to 'what' final aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Poverty-related diseases (PRD) remain amongst the leading causes of death in children under-5 years in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) based on the best available evidence are key to strengthening health systems and helping to enhance equitable health access for children under five. However, the CPG development process is complex and resource-intensive, with substantial scope for improving the process in SSA, which is the goal of the Global Evidence, Local Adaptation (GELA) project. The impact of research on PRD will be maximized through enhancing researchers and decision makers' capacity to use global research to develop locally relevant CPGs in the field of newborn and child health. The project will be implemented in three SSA countries, Malawi, South Africa and Nigeria, over a 3-year period. This research protocol is for the monitoring and evaluation work package of the project. The aim of this work package is to monitor the various GELA project activities and evaluate the influence these may have on evidence-informed decision-making and guideline adaptation capacities and processes. The specific project activities we will monitor include (1) our ongoing engagement with local stakeholders, (2) their capacity needs and development, (3) their understanding and use of evidence from reviews of qualitative research and, (4) their overall views and experiences of the project., Methods: We will use a longitudinal, mixed-methods study design, informed by an overarching project Theory of Change. A series of interconnected qualitative and quantitative data collections methods will be used, including knowledge translation tracking sheets and case studies, capacity assessment online surveys, user testing and in-depth interviews, and non-participant observations of project activities. Participants will comprise of project staff, members of the CPG panels and steering committees in Malawi, South Africa and Nigeria, as well as other local stakeholders in these three African countries., Discussion: Ongoing monitoring and evaluation will help ensure the relationship between researchers and stakeholders is supported from the project start. This can facilitate achievement of common goals and enable researchers in South Africa, Malawi and Nigeria to make adjustments to project activities to maximize stakeholder engagement and research utilization. Ethical approval has been provided by South African Medical Research Council Human Research Ethics Committee (EC015-7/2022); The College of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee, Malawi (P.07/22/3687); National Health Research Ethics Committee of Nigeria (01/01/2007)., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Investment into research is a vital key to positively impacting on society. Research policies are the instruments which prescribe the direction in which the funding flows. This article shows how South African researchers have responded to the Ten-Year Innovation Plan (TYIP) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), particularly in light of identified areas of specialisation. It discusses the specialisation among the universities in the country. It comments on the problems with metrics relating to research output in an attempt to explain why South Africa has not shown the desired output. The activity index, which shows the relative specialisation of a country or a university, was used as the primary metric to evaluate the effectiveness of the TYIP. Publication counts were drawn from Web of Science. It was found that South Africa fell short of the goal expressed in the TYIP. In areas of specialisation, the five Grand Challenges showed varying changes: from a decrease in "global change science with a focus on climate change" to a significant increase in "human and social dynamics". Universities in South Africa are shown to be multi-focused in their research. Drawing from the literature, this article provides five possible explanations as to why the output was not at the expected level. The use of the activity index as a tool to evaluate policy does not give a full picture of the impact of research. This article provides suggestions for future policymakers and researchers on the development of a more appropriate method of evaluating research policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of highly cited papers (HCPs) to assess research excellence (RE) is widespread but the emergence of alternative metrics for assessing research impact has ignited debates on their role in measuring RE. This paper undertakes an altmetrics analysis of South Africa's highly cited papers with a view to assessing the extent of online attention to these papers; the correlation between citation and altmetrics data and nuances in research fields, using conventional and altmetrics data. The Web of Science's (WoS) Incites Essential Science Indicator (ESI) database was used to extract the metrics of HCPs while the online portal altmetric.com was used to obtain the altmetrics data for each HCP. The Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between citation data and altmetrics of the HCPs. The results indicate that clinical medicine posted the highest number of HCPs but was behind Space Science and Molecular Biology & Genetics in terms of citations per paper. Only six fields recorded more than 100 HCPs. Overall, South Africa's HCPs have the highest altmetrics presence in Dimensions followed by Mendeley, Twitter, Facebook, News Outlets and Blogs. However, each research field exhibited different patterns as far as online attention of their papers is concerned. The implications of the plausibility of using altmetrics in assessing RE in South Africa are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addressed the conceptualization of the societal impact of research from the perspective of programme evaluation, by focusing on the three 'result' elements of logic models: outputs, outcomes, and impact. In research evaluation, the distinction could resemble a difference between product, use, and benefit. The study established whether researchers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), South Africa excluded, view societal impact as extending across all three elements or as confined to the last element only. A web survey of 485 SSA researchers was conducted, as researchers from this region are not yet bounded by policy definitions of impact. The survey imposed the three elements of logic models onto five hypothetical descriptions of 'impactful' research initiatives. Respondents rated each element in terms of how much it reflects the societal impact of research. For any initiative, use was more likely to be considered a strong example of societal impact compared to a product, but less likely so compared to benefit. Between 23% and 43% of respondents rated all three elements as strong examples of the societal impact of research. Responses were analyzed by SSA region and the research domain and years of research experience of survey participants. An open-ended question about own understandings of societal impact was included as well in the survey. The responses portrayed impact as a (generally) positive effect that contributes to change in the daily life of human kind. The expectation that research should have impact at an almost general level of aggregation could be unique to the SSA context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied the 'productive interactions' approach of research impact assessment to the case of maritime piracy research in South Africa. The focus was on the stakeholder interactions associated with the doctoral work and related activities of an individual researcher. A set of documents—provided by the researcher as evidence of potential impact—was coded systematically in terms of the direct and indirect interactions reflected and whether those interactions were productive. Evidence of either research uptake or research use was taken to imply a productive interaction. The coding generated eleven instances of productive interactions, presented in the form of a contribution narrative. Additional information for contextualization, obtained from interviews with the researcher and one of the stakeholders, was also considered. The study highlights the role of research in relation to an expert's productive interactions and comments on the feasibility of self-documentation as a method for data collection when constructing an account of contribution. A framework that addresses the lack of focus on the broader effects of productive interactions is also presented, for consideration in future studies of the impact of individual researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports the findings of an informeiric study of the countries with which South Africa collaborates in research. The study period spans 20 years (10 years each during and afier the apartheid era). Data were extracted from the Thomson Reuters citation indexes, namely: Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). Among the findings, it was observed that multiple-country-author papers, as well as the number of collaborating countries are on the rise since 1986. The USA topped the list of the countries outside Africa collaborating with South Africa while Zimbabwe topped the list of African countries. However, the strength of research collaboration was low for both categories of countries. Regarding impact, international collaboration yielded higher average citations per paper than continental collaboration. The study concludes that there are many unique research areas in which African countries can collaborate, and reconunends that these areas should form themes along which scholars in Africa could conduct collaborative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]