How does research create value when it doesn’t produce a tangible output?
For Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) scholars, this is hardly a new question. The value of research is often easiest to recognise when there is something concrete to point to: a new vaccine, a device, a technology or a product. When the result is less tangible, its value can be harder to see — and harder to demonstrate.
Yet SSH research often works precisely in this less visible space. It generates evidence and methodologies, changes practices, builds capacities and creates new forms of collaboration. Its results may not always be something we can hold in our hands, but they can change how we understand a problem and what we do about it.
And this is where things become interesting. A new way of involving citizens can be adopted by another municipality. A research method can become part of professional practice. Evidence can reshape how a policy problem is understood — and eventually how it is addressed. Knowledge does not have to become a product to be taken up, applied and contribute to change.
The challenge, then, is how we recognise and carry that value beyond the research itself. Conventional approaches to valorisation have often been better equipped to capture technology transfer and commercially oriented results. A new European Commission publication, Practical Guidance for the Valorisation of Multidisciplinary Research and Innovation Results, addresses this gap, noting that many existing frameworks were developed primarily for STEM research, where technology-transfer pathways and metrics are more established.
Rather than trying to fit every research result into the same model, the guidance maps ten different pathways to valorisation. Some lead into policy, others into organisational change, participatory innovation, capacity building or public debate. And they can overlap: what matters is finding the form, partners and context through which knowledge can become useful beyond the project that produced it.
From Research to Use
Across the SOCIETY ecosystem, we can see how research results move into practice in very different ways.
Sometimes it is evidence. In PROTEMO, research on the role of emotions in protective policies and political communication is being brought into dialogue with policymakers and practitioners. The value of the research emerges as findings are translated into formats that can inform how policy is discussed, designed and implemented.
Elsewhere, it is not simply a finding that is taken up, but a way of working. RURACTIVE’s Rural Innovation Ecosystems bring local actors together to identify needs and develop solutions for rural transformation. In this case, the co-creation process is itself part of the result: it builds relationships, local knowledge and capacities that can remain useful beyond a single intervention — and potentially be adapted in other rural contexts.
PIONEERED adds another dimension. Its research on intersectional inequalities in education was translated into policy- and practice-oriented tools and recommendations for education stakeholders. In this way, research that began by analysing inequalities became a resource that institutions and professionals could use to reflect on their own practices and approaches. Seen together, these projects make the idea of valorisation much more concrete. What is carried forward may be evidence, a methodology, a new practice, or the capacity to work differently. The route varies, but the underlying movement is the same: knowledge leaves the boundaries of the research project and becomes something that others can use, adapt and build on.
From Project Value to Ecosystem Value
There is another important idea running through the Commission guidance: valorisation is a collective endeavour. Its success depends on the broader innovation ecosystem — on researchers, but also on intermediaries, public authorities, civil society, practitioners and other actors who can connect research with the contexts in which it can be used.
This is particularly relevant for SOCIETY. Looking across projects allows us to see forms of value that may be less visible when projects are considered individually. Methods developed in one context can inspire work elsewhere; experiences of engaging policymakers or communities can be shared; and relationships and knowledge can extend beyond individual project boundaries. Perhaps this also invites us to look differently at what an “exploitable result” can be. Instead of asking only what a project has produced, we can ask: Who could use what we have learned, in what form — and what would help them carry it forward?