Measuring knowledge exchange - the road to societal impact?

Given the well-known difficulties of measuring the full impact of universities, it may be better to focus instead on knowledge exchange, the process by which the societal impact of scientific knowledge is realised. For Frank Zwetsloot and Anika Duut van Goor, "contract income" - the financial investments made by external parties in contract research, contract education, patents or start-ups in the hope of creating impact - is a meaningful indicator of impact.