Enhancing the impact of a research infrastructure (II)

How to enhance the impact of research infrastructures?

DARIAH-DE (2017) has developed a sophisticated tool to answer this question: The Impactomatrix. Based on literature review as well as on interviews and surveys, the Impactomatrix offers the “possibility to boost the impact of […] digital tools and infrastructure components”. By selecting within the Impactomatrix the areas of impact that are to be improved, one is shown the corresponding factors which could have an influence on a selected impact area and the criteria relevant for assessing it.

One such impact area is “Communication” and a corresponding factor is “Multilingualism”. This is also an area where PARTHENOS is trying to increase its impact, for instance by translating its dissemination materials into several languages.

Another impact area covered by the Impactomatrix is “Transfer of knowledge” which can be influenced by an “appealing web surface”. Collaborating with an external partner (MediaLAB) and creating a whole project (Project ‘Resonance’), the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) has done a lot more for transferring knowledge than just only creating a nice surface. The collaboration resulted in an experimental website where Holocaust sources are presented in new ways to engage the general public with Holocaust historic information, stimulating interest in the topic while also being educational. To find out more about this collaboration, watch the interview with Petra Drenth from EHRI in the section Voices from the Community, there you will also find interviews with other experts of impact and/or outreach.