U.K.'s 2014 Research Excellence Framework Designates Research "Impact" to Contribute up to 20% of Overall Scores. (March 11, 2011)

Science today reports:

Funding Bodies Decide Weight Of Research ‘Impact’

Last week, the United Kingdom's higher education funding bodies revealed how much weight the country's next nationwide assessment of science in its universities would give to the economic and social impact of research. Such impacts, which have not been part of previous assessments, will make up 20% of the overall scores in the U.K.'s 2014 Research Excellence Framework, which will determine how a large portion of the nation's research funding is distributed. That weighting is less than the 25% the funding bodies originally proposed—they plan to ramp up the percentage in future assessments—but it's still more than what was desired by critics who argue that the economic and social impacts of basic research can't be meaningfully measured.