Which types of online evidence show the nonacademic benefits of research? Websites cited in UK impact case studies

Abstract While funders increasingly request evidence of the societal benefits research, all academics in UK must periodically provide this information to gain part their block funding within Research Excellence Framework (REF). The impact case studies produced are public and can therefore be used insights into types sources justify claims. This study focuses on URLs cited as last REF help researchers resource providers understand what disciplinary differences uptake. Based a new semiautomatic method classify studies, results show that there few key online source for most broad fields, but these differ substantially between subject areas. For example, news websites more important some fields than others, YouTube is sometimes multimedia arts humanities. Knowledge common selected independently by thousands may others identify suitable complex task evidencing impacts.