Visible: discovering the impact of research conducted by universities of applied sciences

Coombs, S.K. (2025)

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation aims to address the following questions: What are the requirements for evaluating the research impact created by Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences’ (UASs) research?
How can these requirements be applied within the context of the goals of Dutch UASs?
It sets out to discover the requirements for evaluating the research impact made by UAS research and explore how these can be implemented in real-life within the current policy landscape. Answering these questions has resulted in two distinct yet interlinked segments as we moved from theory to practice. Firstly, we sought to delineate the rules governing the evaluation of UAS research impact. Secondly, we analysed the current practices within the contextual playing field in which Dutch UASs find themselves and experimented with applying the requirements to the impact evaluation process of Dutch UAS research. Our results culminate in recommendations for conducting UAS research impact evaluation as well as discussing how our conclusions can be applied by researchers, administrators and policy-makers in practice.

• Research Impact
• Universities of Applied Sciences
• Impact Evaluation
• Practice Oriented Research
• Practice Based Research
• Knowledge Triangle

• All authors: Coombs, S.K.
• Supervisor: Wouters, P.F.
• Co-supervisor: Meijer, I.
• Committee: Waltman, L.R.; Hessels, L.K.; Nemeth, A.A.; Vermeulen, N.; Feringa, D.D.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University
• Date: 2025-02-21
• Sponsorship: Saxion University of Applied Sciences