The often-expressed need for scientific research in a societal context, and the political, economical and societal pressure to make society benefit from research, has called for new instruments that are able to demonstrate societal quality of scientific research in addition to its scientific quality. The need for appropriate evaluation instruments is part of the wider need of professionalizing the process of socio-economic valorisation at large at universities and institutes for applied science. Not only the evaluation instruments are lacking, also at the policy level this so-called ‘third mission’ of universities is little elaborated.

Societal quality is defined as the value that is created by connecting research to societal practice. In addition, a new methodology is being developed to measure the societal effects of scientific research. The method needs to be ‘light’, compatible to existing evaluation methods for scientific excellence, and should be used for assessing societal quality of scientific research in all arts and science domains. A combination of logical framework approach and the concept of productive interactions will be used. The steps together will give insight in the mission, objectives, activities, outputs and outcomes in discrete societal domains, and involves stakeholder analysis and consultation. It results in a description of the societal quality of research, which can be further quantified.

An important next step is establishing commonly accepted (type of) datasets, data collection methods, and minimum methodological requirements for the metrics of societal quality, just as there is for the measurement of scientific quality. More explicit strategic attention for the concept of societal quality may eventually result in more systematic attention for the operational process of assessing societal quality, which in turn could end up in an integrated model of assessing scientific and societal quality that fits into the ambitions of a knowledge based society.