Measuring and improving the societal impact of health care research

Abstract

Health care research is increasingly being evaluated in terms of its contribution to new market products and services, among other factors, in the European Union’s new Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020. However, discoveries in health care research often are not marketable products but innovations intended for the public domain. Therefore, funders and the research community need to review the applicability of impact frameworks for evaluating these types of research. Of key importance is the development of societal impact indicators for ex-ante evaluations of research programmes and projects. Such assessments should also take the specificities of European versus national level research into account.