@article{11fbf89f22834c4187d53ff2bdcb620c,
title = "Fostering social project impact with Twitter: Current usage and perspectives",
abstract = "Social impact assessment has become a major concern within the research community. While different methodological advancements have been made to better display, as well as to measure, achieved impacts, social media has proved to be a potential domain to generate many new opportunities to support both the communication as well as the realization of social impact. Within this context, the current research presents an analysis of how Twitter is used among a subset of research projects to maximize social impact. The research focuses on the use of Twitter, as one of the most often used social media, by the members of scientific projects funded under one part of the FP7 funding framework of the European Union called Science in Society. The data were analyzed using NVivo, and WordStat Provalis software. The results presented in this study include exploratory data analysis, topic mining and the analysis of the impact of projects on Twitter. The results indicate moderate use of Twitter among the observed projects, but with a strong focus on the dissemination of project results, thus indicating a trend towards the usage of social media for communicating the social impact of research projects.",
keywords = "FP7, Social impact assessment, Text mining, Topic mining, Twitter",
author = "Bach, \{Mirjana Peji{\'c}\} and Pulido, \{Cristina M.\} and Vugec, \{Dalia Su{\v s}a\} and Vladia Ionescu and Gisela Redondo-Sama and Laura Ruiz-Eugenio",
note = "Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported by the European Social Fund and Spanish Agency of Research under the Ramon y Cajal grant number RYC2018-025860-I. Funding Information: It is a well-known fact that research and innovation influence and contribute to the level of well-being and prosperity of both individuals and society in general. Moreover, research and innovation, as well as knowledge and education, are the prerequisites for creating jobs and obtaining citizens{\textquoteright} satisfaction in the long term. Therefore, the European Union is investing a great proportion of its budget towards funding various scientific projects from all areas of science. One of the frameworks under which the European Union is funding scientific projects is the FP7, which was designed as an answer to issues about employment needs, competitiveness and the quality of life in Europe [43]. FP7 stands for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, which was the main instrument for funding research in Europe from 2007 until 2013 [43]. The FP7 is legally based on Decision No. 1982/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (2007–2013). The Decision states that the aim of the FP7 framework is “to contribute to the Union becoming the world{\textquoteright}s leading research area” [44] (p. 1). Moreover, it has been stated that FP7 is supposed to have a strong focus on promotion and investment in excellent state-of-the-art research [ 44]. To meet the objectives of the FP7 stated by the Decision, four types of activities have been identified as those that must be promoted by the FP7 programmes; hence, four programmes have been established: Funding Information: This paper analyses the use of social networks for fostering project impact, with a special focus on the analysis of the Twitter accounts and activities of such networks. To evaluate the potential of Twitter use in fostering project impact, we have decided to focus on the Science in Society FP7 projects funded by the European Union. One of the limitations of this study is that in the beginning of the FP7 projects the use of Twitter in research projects was not as popular as it is now and there are projects that are not included in the analysis because they did not use it for this reason. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 by the authors.",
year = "2020",
month = aug,
day = "4",
doi = "10.3390/SU12156290",
language = "English",
volume = "12",
journal = "Sustainability",
issn = "2071-1050",
publisher = "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)",
number = "15",
}
