Exploratory Workshop on Societal Impact Planning

Societal impact is producing measurable improvements in society, such as better public health or ecological restoration, that extend beyond academia, but how can we address impact planning within the Helmholtz Earth & Environment Centers? Based on this guiding question, 27 participants from AWI, GEOMAR, GFZ/RIFS, Hereon/GERICS, KIT, UFZ and other organizations came together in the Chilehaus Hamburg on October 23, 2025 for a SynCom Flex workshop.

After an introduction by Marie Heidenreich (SynCom) and Dr. Louis Celliers (Hereon/GERICS), Lena Pfeifer (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research – ZALF) presented a comprehensive tool for reflection and strategic planning of (sustainability) impact of (interdisciplinary) research. In their tool based on the LeNa project, impact is not only measured, but enablers and barriers to having positive impact are described as well. Combined, this helps to identify research gaps and interdisciplinary cooperation opportunities. In her summary, Lena Pfeifer reflected on the intensive resource need including skills and time and on the need for institutionalization, impact support structures, and reward systems.

Henry Hempel (UFZ) addressed narratives about the societal impact of chemicals in a second input. He asked if chemicals are the enablers of modern life or rather a source for pollution. During his talk, he reflected on a stakeholder process within the SynCom Project ModHaz. By putting competing narratives into perspective through interaction with stakeholders, polarization can be mitigated and narratives can be shaped towards a compromise-oriented discourse coalition to bridge the competitiveness-pollution divide. One of the key learnings was that stakeholders called for a ‘safe space’ to discuss issues securely between competitors and with regulators. Finally, moving beyond polarized dichotomies can foster compromise and enable more nuanced policy making.

Real-world laboratories (RWLs) as impact-oriented research infrastructures were presented by Dr. Philip Bernert (RIFS). RWLs that are built as long-term infrastructures enable participants to learn and exchange to work towards better conditions and new collaborative governance arrangements. Impacts may emerge through diverse activities, events, and parallel processes in and around these labs. Core challenges in impact measurement are attribution, causality, and ownership. Planning impact allows us to discuss what we want to achieve. Simultaneously, needs, necessities, interests, and goals should be integrated in an ongoing negotiation process.

After networking among the participants during the lunch break, Boris Kozlowski (Social Entrepreneurship City Hamburg) gave insights into the impact of social enterprises. Social Enterprises roughly i) aim to achieve an impact that addresses a societal challenge, ii) require entrepreneurial resources, iii) have a legal framework designed to anchor impact in the statutes. One core idea in the context of these enterprises are impact partnerships that are associated with a cross-sectoral integration. Within their framework for impact assessment, the IOOI (Input, Output, Outcome, Impact) plays a central role. Impact attribution, time lag between a measure/an activity and its impact, quantification of social impacts, comparability between companies and the requirement for resources for impact measurement remain difficult. However, in practice it is about getting started and finding a balance: How much impact can we actually measure?

Dr. Andreas Schmidt (Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space – BMFTR) addressed the topic of impact orientation in sustainability research. The BMFTR pursues various approaches towards impact orientation (e.g., as part of the FONA strategy or formative impact reflection approaches), but it is clear that social impact is not a given and impacts are often not easily comprehensible. Nevertheless, it is important to carefully consider the tension between the suitability of the methods and indicators and their comparability and transferability.

To set the scene for the discussions among the workshop participants, Dr. Louis Celliers (Hereon/GERICS) summarized his thoughts on impact planning while addressing the question ‘So what and what now?’. In a first proposition for context, he discussed that the Helmholtz Earth & Environment Centers are holders of intellectual assets which are the basis for impact. However, we do not necessarily have a good overview of the intellectual assets. In a second proposition, he combined thoughts on impact at the level of the Helmholtz Association and impact with(in) society. As an example, the Coastal Pollution Toolbox is a way to show the collective impact of several intellectual assets.

The following questions were addressed in engaging discussions during breakout sessions, building on the expertise within the diverse group of participants:

• How do you currently integrate societal impact into your research planning? And if impact planning is not yet part of your process, what challenges, assumptions, or structural barriers have prevented it?
• How can narratives and storytelling approaches help us envision and shape the societal impact in environmental research?
• Which processes, frameworks, or concrete methods support effective planning for societal impact in environmental research?

The results of the workshop will serve as a basis to move impact planning within the Helmholtz Earth & Environment Centers forward.

_{This SynCom Flex Activity was initiated by Hereon/GERICS (Louis Celliers, Marcus Lange, David Cabana, Volker Matthias), AWI (Gesche Krause, Lena Rölfer, Christina Hörterer), UFZ (Henry Hempel, Sina Leipold), and GFZ/RIFS (Barbara Neumann).}