Evaluating Impact of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Social Science: An NSF RAPID Proposal

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This research will develop a database of the investments in and outcomes of social science projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act., The database will be developed by the InterUniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which has been a leader in data dissemination and preservation for nearly five decades. Intellectual Merit The development of this infrastructure will help ensure that it will be possible to understand and evaluate the impact of investments in social science research and data production funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Such a database will help scholars evaluate their contribution to economic change, to the making of science policy, and to innovative social science research more broadly. A novel feature of the approach is that it enables scholars to examine the entire life cycle of a research project and its products through publications, citations, presentations to policymakers, and other means. The PIs use a combination of bibliometric analysis and surveys with principal investigators to get at the multidimensional nature of research impact. This project will leverage the core technologies and staff that have been used to successfully track research outputs for other projects. Broader Impact The major impact derives from the database of outcome indicators published and preserved as part of ICPSRs archival holdings. In addition, the acquisition and dissemination of the ARRA-funded research data to the scientific community permits a wide variety of secondary analyses, replication, and reporting.