A value creation model from science-society interconnections: Archetypal analysis combining publications, survey and altmetric data

Irene Ramos Vielba, Nicolás Robinson García, Richard Woolley
PLoS ONE

The interplay between science and society takes place through a wide range of intertwined
relationships and mutual influences that shape each other and facilitate continuous knowledge
flows. Stylised consequentialist perspectives on valuable knowledge moving from public
science to society in linear and recursive pathways, whilst informative, cannot fully
capture the broad spectrum of value creation possibilities. As an alternative we experiment
with an approach that gathers together diverse science-society interconnections and reciprocal
research-related knowledge processes that can generate valorisation. Our approach
to value creation attempts to incorporate multiple facets, directions and dynamics in which
constellations of scientific and societal actors generate value from research. The paper
develops a conceptual model based on a set of nine value components derived from four
key research-related knowledge processes: production, translation, communication, and
utilization. The paper conducts an exploratory empirical study to investigate whether a set of
archetypes can be discerned among these components that structure science-society interconnections.
We explore how such archetypes vary between major scientific fields. Each
archetype is overlaid on a research topic map, with our results showing the distinctive topic
areas that correspond to different archetypes. The paper finishes by discussing the significance
and limitations of our results and the potential of both our model and our empirical
approach for further research.