ON THE GRAPEVINE
It’s not just meteorites that have a big impact
The political scientist David H. Guston would like us to find a better way of measuring the impact of research.
Photo: provided by subject
“Some ideas burn slowly over time but nevertheless instigate profound changes”.
David H. Guston is a political scientist at Arizona State University. In an article in the journal Issues in Science and Technology, he has demonstrated how to measure research impact better. It is too constricting, he says, to discuss an important patent or a new law by using the metaphor of a meteorite that hits a planet and changes everything. What’s important, says Guston, is that researchers are open when describing their assumptions about their work and their findings.
