Measuring the impact of science; How CTSAs use the Translational Science Benefits Model to show real world benefits

Government, non-profits, and organizations fund research with the ultimate goal of improving health and society. Yet measuring these long-term outcomes can be challenging, and research impact has traditionally been tied to quantitative productivity, like bibliometrics and grant funding, and not necessarily the broader impacts of research. For years, researchers lacked a cohesive framework to measure their work in terms of lives saved, improvements to health, and cost savings.

To address these challenges and to speed the effort for a more ubiquitous measurement tool, the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis created the Translational Science Benefits Model (TSBM) as a framework public health and clinical scientists can use to demonstrate the impact of their work in the real world.