Impact for TNO means that the knowledge we develop is applied to the maximum possible extent and allows to solve societal challenges together with our clients and research partners. Creating impact is part of the mission of TNO. Realizing this mission is important for the outside world to justify funding, to disseminate results of projects and to stimulate new collaborations. Aiming for societal impact also guides internal decision making. Since purposeful work is important for employees, creating impact increases motivation of employees.
To measure this impact and be able to provide better insight into impact, TNO developed the Impact Mapping Tool, a tool that helps show the impact of projects in regard to the Sustainable Development Goals. This tool is a qualitative tool that provides insight into the intended impact, taking into account several dimensions of impact (i.e. not only economic impact).
The Impact Mapping Tool is applied in several areas within TNO. In this presentation the results will be shown of an analysis with the Impact Mapping Tool of the TNO research program ‘Sustainable Work’. In an interactive part of the presentation the Impact Mapping Tool will be applied to a project brought in by a volunteer in the audience (or if there are no volunteers, on one of the PEROSH joint research projects).
At this moment, the Impact Mapping Tool is a qualitative tool to predict impact of research activities. In the next step of the development of this tool, relevant impact indicators will be identified to enable quantitative insight into impact. Challenges in developing these indicators and in determining what part of impact is realised by one research program, will be discussed.
Contribution to PEROSH Research Conference 2019.
