Abstract

This paper analyses how a whole national research system is influenced by the “impact agenda” and slowly but surely develops tools and mechanisms to promote this agenda. It also explores the role of research managers and academics in influencing this agenda and, once implemented, working with it.
Iceland is a small nation with a strong and very international research base. Research funding through competitive funds and block contributions to universities and institutions has traditionally been bottom-up, based on peer-review of the quality of the research, in the case of competitive funds, and unspecified and opaque models for research funding, in the case of universities and institutions. At the end of 2023, a new model for the funding of universities was announced, and the finance bill for 2024 is already takes this new model into consideration. Drastic changes seem to be on the horizon, with little notice. Looking closely at the development of discourse on research in various policy documents and developments towards new systems for research evaluations, shows that the national system of research evaluation and funding has been preparing for such a rapid change of focus for some time. But how much of this is on purpose? How much is driven by international developments and how much by domestic issues?
In this paper I analyse policy and system changes that have happened in Iceland since 2008, the year of the financial collapse that led to a dramatic revaluation of central aspects of Icelandic society (though it can, and has been, debated how much has actually changed) including higher education and research. Based on a model proposed by Marta Natalia Wróblewska in 2021, proposing four stages of development towards the “impact agenda”, I explore what stages the system has reached and how. Despite the drastic changes proposed in 2023, it seems the system has only reached stages one and two (1. problematisation of the notion of impact and 2. establishment of impact infrastructures), but is still significantly lacking in stages 3 (consolidation of the genre of writing impact case studies) and 4 (academics’ positioning practices towards the notion of impact).
Based on this analysis I explore what role research management has played in the development and what role it can play during a national implementation of a new system.

References:
Marta Natalia Wróblewska. 2021. “Research impact evaluation and academic discourse”. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 8, 58.
Eiríkur Smári Sigurðarson. 2023. „From moral panic to accountability: Societal impact, evaluations and bibliometrics in Iceland.“ In Accountability in Academic Life: European Perspectives on Societal Impact Evaluation. Edd. Michael Ochsner and Zoe Hope Bulaitis, 114-126. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing