Conclusion
Societal impact of research: assessment and prospects

Recognized as major limitations in the development of all the methodologies currently in use, these issues of temporality, causality and taking into account the specificities of research call into question the validity of conditioning the investments allocated to science on the results of societal impact assessments. The examples cited above illustrate the real risk that this conditioning will subject research to the effects of fashion and the whims of social demand, with the harmful effect of tainting the legitimacy and quality of scientific results