Potential categories of impact were designated in five domains: research transfer; research targeting, capacity building and absorption; informing policy and product development; health and health sector benefits; and broader economic benefits.
While some of the informants (Res, EM, DoH) suggested a polarisation with government on the one side wanting externalisation and civil society wanting absorption, the policy debate was more complex as the following quote suggests: Some people who say no, it has to be state employment and to hell with NGOs.
The 5 main categories are: a) Knowledge production b) Research targeting, capacity building and absorption c) Informing policy and product development d) Health benefits e) Broader economic benefits.
The categories in the Payback Framework were found to be applicable to assessing impact of primary health care research, especially the more proximal impacts on knowledge production, research targeting, capacity building and absorption, and informing practice, policy and product development.
The payback categories have been found to be applicable to assessing impact of research [ 15, 24, 29], especially the more proximal impacts on knowledge production, research targeting, capacity building and absorption, and informing practice, policy, and product development.
What is the role of domestic absorption capacity and of policies designed to enhance it?
Still Danuta Hübner, the (Polish) EU commissioner for regional policy, says that absorption capacity will have to "accelerate dramatically".Businessmen are rather less pleased that strong growth has allowed the government to splurge on social programmes.
During the interviews, chief investigators provided more information about impacts in the first three payback categories (knowledge production; research targeting, capacity building and absorption; and informing practice and policy at a local or regional level) than about system wide, population or economic impacts (see Table 1).
(Now, after the official absorption of Hillary Clinton's foreign-policy apparatus, there may be as many as five hundred experts connected to the Obama campaign).
But its intensity and self-absorption, and the lack of focus on policy except as a vehicle for the internal battle, is still startling.
