The Impact Codex CODEX VIEW

build 20260630_1209

Introduction

Welcome to the Impact Codex, a living, open synthesis of how business schools and universities evidence their impact, by codifying 20 source frameworks into one consistent, validated reference with 7 generic types of impact, 51 indicators for these types and 428 metrics and 473 ways to measure these.

Business schools and universities are asked, more and more, to demonstrate the difference they make — for research, for education, for students, for organisations and for society at large. Dozens of frameworks now try to capture that impact, each with its own language, indicators and emphasis. The Impact Codex brings them together in one place.

It reads the leading impact frameworks side by side and organises what they measure into a single, consistent map. For any indicator and metric you can see where it comes from, how well it is grounded across frameworks, and whether responsible-assessment guidance encourages it or asks for caution.

Think of it as a shared, evolving reference — somewhere to get an overview of the whole impact ecosystem instead of re-reading every framework. It will keep growing as new credible frameworks emerge.

The whole impact-assessment landscape on one map. Click an impact type (its tab, the centre, the legend, or a coloured arm) to open its page — wheel, intro, and the full catalogue of indicators, metrics and measures beneath.

Scroll to zoom, drag to pan. Hover a metric for its definition, grounding and responsible-use; in a focused type the outer ring shows the measures — hover one for detail. Use the tabs (or click an impact type in the wheel) to open each type's page with its full catalogue below.

Methodology & data sources

What this is. The Impact Codex is a synthesis, not a measurement of any single institution. It reads a portfolio of published impact frameworks and reorganises what they measure into one shared structure: impact type → indicator → metric → measurement. Seven impact types (scholarly, educational, organisational, policy, societal, economic & financial, reputational) form the outer ring; each metric is mapped to the activities and stakeholders it concerns and to one or more concrete ways of measuring it.

How metrics are validated. Because a synthesis has to be as trustworthy as the original frameworks, every metric carries transparent validation signals on a 0–10 scale. They describe how well a metric is grounded — not whether it is “good”.

The four proxies

  • Relevance — how fully a metric represents the impact of the activity and audience you selected.
  • Source robustness — how broadly the metric is grounded across frameworks (corroboration, provenance, citation precision).
  • Source fidelity — how faithfully we use a metric relative to its meaning in the originating framework, checked clause by clause.
  • Credible innovation — for frontier (innovator) metrics, how credible and genuinely novel the contribution is.

Responsible use. A separate advisory layer flags whether responsible-assessment guidance (DORA, LERU, VERITY) encourages a metric, accepts it with care, or discourages it for evaluation — so the Codex shows both what the frameworks use and how those measures should responsibly be used.

Transversal dimensions. Cutting across every impact type and layer, each metric is tagged on four qualifiers plus its stakeholders, so you can compare like-for-like wherever you are: Impact statuspromise (potential future impact, typically a forward-looking impact activity) vs proof (impact already realised, an outcome that demonstrates impact); Geographic scale — regional, national or international (or scale-neutral); Measurement — whether the metric carries a quantitative or qualitative measure, or both; and Maturity — grounded in an adopted framework (established) vs a frontier innovator source (emerging). The stakeholders tag records whom the metric concerns. These tags appear on every metric card.

The sources. The Codex currently synthesises 20 sources — 16 established frameworks and 4 innovator (frontier) sources — plus 3 responsible-metrics references. Each is described, with a link, in the sources section just below.

Reproducibility & build. The model lives in a structured repository (a master JSON with a generated SQLite database and an Excel datasheet) that this interactive view reads. Each build runs automated integrity checks — validation scores reproduce, citations reconcile, the database is consistent. The synthesis (how each metric is routed, scored and flagged) is reasoned scholarly judgement; source citations are taken from, and checked against, the original framework documents.

The twenty sources — frameworks, innovators & responsible-metrics references

Every metric in this codex is synthesised from credible external sources. Below is each source, what it is, what it contributes, and a link to learn more. Established frameworks are stewarded, widely adopted systems; innovator sources are frontier contributions scored on the Credible-Innovation proxy; responsible-metrics references are advisory governance guidance (not impact frameworks, not counted among the twenty).

Established frameworks (16)

AACSB
AACSB International — A Framework for Research Impact 2026 & 2026 Global Standards
AACSB International · 2026
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business — the global accreditation standard whose 2026 framework defines research impact across five domains (scholarly, educational, organisational, policy, societal) and a six-stage impact spiral.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 55 primary metrics and independently corroborates 50 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 25 indicators, 105 metrics and 124 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit www.aacsb.edu ↗
EQUIS
EFMD Quality Improvement System — Standards & Criteria 2026
EFMD Global · 2026
EFMD Quality Improvement System — the European institutional accreditation whose 2026 standards and Annex 2 datasheet tables specify research, dissemination and connection-with-practice indicators.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 29 primary metrics and independently corroborates 30 more, spanning 7 of 7 impact types — 20 indicators, 59 metrics and 68 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 7 / 7
Visit www.efmdglobal.org ↗
AMBA
Association of MBAs — MBA Accreditation Criteria
Association of MBAs · 2026
Association of MBAs — the MBA-focused accreditation emphasising graduate attributes, career outcomes and student experience.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 6 primary metrics and independently corroborates 5 more, spanning 3 of 7 impact types — 6 indicators, 11 metrics and 12 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 3 / 7
Visit www.associationofmbas.com ↗
BGA
Business Graduates Association — Continuous Impact Model (CIM) 2026
Business Graduates Association · 2026
Business Graduates Association — whose Continuous Impact Model (CIM) structures impact across dimensions spanning graduate achievement, value creation, society and ecosystem.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 20 primary metrics and independently corroborates 18 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 12 indicators, 38 metrics and 43 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit businessgraduatesassociation.com ↗
BSIS
Business School Impact System — Assessment Criteria Guide
EFMD / FNEGE · 2023
Business School Impact System (EFMD/FNEGE) — the impact-assessment framework built around a defined regional impact zone and seven impact dimensions, contributing the largest share of operational indicators.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 135 primary metrics and independently corroborates 23 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 29 indicators, 158 metrics and 165 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit www.efmdglobal.org ↗
PRME
Principles for Responsible Management Education — The Seven Principles
UN Global Compact / PRME · 2022
Principles for Responsible Management Education — the UN-backed initiative embedding responsibility and the Sustainable Development Goals into management education.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 3 primary metrics and independently corroborates 8 more, spanning 3 of 7 impact types — 4 indicators, 11 metrics and 14 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 3 / 7
Visit www.unprme.org ↗
KEF
Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF5) & Ulrichsen KE clusters
Research England / UKRI · 2023
Knowledge Exchange Framework (UK) — the Research England system measuring universities' knowledge exchange across seven perspectives including commercialisation and working with business.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 19 primary metrics and independently corroborates 15 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 13 indicators, 34 metrics and 42 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit kef.ac.uk ↗
FT
Financial Times Research Insights ranking 2025
Financial Times · 2025
Financial Times Research Insights ranking — whose 2025 methodology measures research relevance, resonance and rigour through seven metrics including supportive citations, SDG alignment and practitioner downloads.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 7 primary metrics and independently corroborates 7 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 12 indicators, 14 metrics and 14 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit www.ft.com ↗
ISI
Clarivate Societal Impact Framework: A guide to responsible impact measurement (2026 edition)
Clarivate (Institute for Scientific Information) · 2026
Clarivate (Institute for Scientific Information) — Societal Impact Framework, 2026 edition 'A guide to responsible impact measurement'. Maps research to societal needs via UN SDGs and PESTLE-derived facets using transparent, reproducible content-based topic clustering, with forward-looking (relevance, communication, attention, engagement, collaboration-beyond-academia, transferability) and retrospective (uptake, media, recognition, nurture) indicator groups; explicitly aligned with DORA, the Leiden Manifesto, SCOPE and CoARA.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 12 primary metrics and independently corroborates 27 more, spanning 7 of 7 impact types — 21 indicators, 39 metrics and 46 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 7 / 7
Visit clarivate.com ↗
EC KV
EU study on metrics and indicators for knowledge valorisation
European Commission (DG R&I) · 2025
European Commission Knowledge Valorisation framework (DG Research & Innovation, 2026) — a study defining sixteen indicators across forty-one metrics and seven valorisation channels, distinguishing output, outcome and impact, and supplying a factsheet per indicator. Source of the standardisation and cross-sector-mobility channels and several collaboration-intensity metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 42 primary metrics and independently corroborates 21 more, spanning 5 of 7 impact types — 14 indicators, 63 metrics and 70 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 5 / 7
Visit research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu ↗
RRBM
Responsible Research in Business & Management — Principles of Responsible Research
RRBM Network · 2020
Responsible Research in Business & Management — a global network whose Principles of Responsible Research promote useful and credible scholarship, contributing responsibility- and relevance-oriented research metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 7 primary metrics and independently corroborates 4 more, spanning 2 of 7 impact types — 4 indicators, 11 metrics and 13 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 2 / 7
Visit rrbm.network ↗
THE
Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2025 (SDG-based)
Times Higher Education · 2025
Times Higher Education Impact Rankings — the global ranking that assesses universities against the UN Sustainable Development Goals, contributing SDG-aligned societal-impact metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 8 primary metrics and independently corroborates 3 more, spanning 1 of 7 impact types — 2 indicators, 11 metrics and 13 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 1 / 7
Visit www.timeshighereducation.com ↗
LE
London Economics / UUK — Economic impact of HE teaching, research and innovation
London Economics (for Universities UK) · 2024
London Economics (for Universities UK) — an economic-impact study quantifying the contribution of university teaching, research and innovation, contributing monetary and economic-value metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 13 primary metrics and independently corroborates 14 more, spanning 2 of 7 impact types — 7 indicators, 27 metrics and 33 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 2 / 7
Visit londoneconomics.co.uk ↗
RII
EU JRC — Regional Innovation Impact Assessment Framework for universities (RI2A) + Edward Elgar book
European Commission Joint Research Centre · 2018
European Commission Joint Research Centre — its Regional Innovation Impact Assessment Framework (RI2A) assesses universities' contribution to regional innovation through case studies supported by indicators, contributing regional-innovation metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 10 primary metrics and independently corroborates 13 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 13 indicators, 23 metrics and 26 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu ↗
EIT
European Institute of Innovation & Technology — Impact Framework / Impact Study
EIT (European Union body) · 2022
European Institute of Innovation & Technology — its Impact Framework measures the outcomes of EIT's innovation communities, contributing innovation-ecosystem and entrepreneurship metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 10 primary metrics and independently corroborates 9 more, spanning 4 of 7 impact types — 6 indicators, 19 metrics and 21 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 4 / 7
Visit www.eit.europa.eu ↗
SciVal
Elsevier Research Metrics — SciVal / Scopus (Research Metrics Guidebook + SciVal Usage & Patent Metrics Guidebook)
Elsevier · 2019
Elsevier SciVal / Scopus — the Research Metrics Guidebook (plus the SciVal Usage & Patent Metrics Guidebook): standardised definitions for a broad set of research-analytics metrics across productivity, citation impact (incl. Field-Weighted Citation Impact and top-percentile measures), collaboration, usage/views, media exposure and patent citations, drawn from one of the two dominant global citation indexes. An established research-intelligence platform; many of its headline bibliometric metrics are exactly those responsible-metrics guidance (DORA/LERU) asks to be used with care or, for journal-prestige proxies, discouraged for evaluation.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 14 primary metrics and independently corroborates 11 more, spanning 3 of 7 impact types — 9 indicators, 25 metrics and 28 ways to measure.
Impact types covered 3 / 7
Visit www.elsevier.com ↗

Innovator (frontier) sources (4)

ABDC
ABDC Societal Impact Framework for business-school research (whitepaper)
Australian Business Deans Council · 2026
Australian Business Deans Council — its Societal Impact Framework whitepaper sets out how business-school research creates societal value; a frontier (innovator) source contributing impact-pathway and engagement metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 9 primary metrics and independently corroborates 17 more, spanning 4 of 7 impact types — 13 indicators, 26 metrics and 38 ways to measure. As a frontier source, its metrics also carry a Credible-Innovation score.
Impact types covered 4 / 7
Visit abdc.edu.au ↗
PIR
Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools (Dyllick & Muff)
Positive Impact Rating Association · 2020
Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools (Dyllick & Muff) — a student-voice rating of a school's positive societal impact across seven dimensions; a frontier (innovator) source contributing perception-based engagement metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 8 primary metrics, spanning 4 of 7 impact types — 5 indicators, 8 metrics and 8 ways to measure. As a frontier source, its metrics also carry a Credible-Innovation score.
Impact types covered 4 / 7
Visit www.positiveimpactrating.org ↗
CIVIC
Civic University Network — A Framework for Civic Impact (Civic Activity Framework)
Civic University Network / UPP Foundation · 2024
Civic University Network / UPP Foundation — its Civic Impact Framework helps universities evidence their civic role across seven domains; a frontier (innovator) source contributing place-based civic-engagement metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 13 primary metrics and independently corroborates 25 more, spanning 6 of 7 impact types — 11 indicators, 38 metrics and 42 ways to measure. As a frontier source, its metrics also carry a Credible-Innovation score.
Impact types covered 6 / 7
Visit civicuniversitynetwork.co.uk ↗
4GU
4th Generation University — orchestrating regional innovation ecosystems (quadruple helix; transformative regional impact)
4th Generation University Community · 2025
4th Generation University Community — a frontier (innovator) initiative on universities orchestrating regional innovation ecosystems (quadruple helix), contributing transformative regional-impact metrics.
How it is integrated
Integrated into the Impact Codex as a recognised source. It contributes 8 primary metrics and independently corroborates 11 more, spanning 5 of 7 impact types — 11 indicators, 19 metrics and 21 ways to measure. As a frontier source, its metrics also carry a Credible-Innovation score.
Impact types covered 5 / 7
Visit 4thgenuniversity.com ↗

Responsible-metrics references (3) — advisory, not counted among the twenty

DORA
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
DORA · 2013
Declaration and guidance to stop using journal-based metrics (e.g. Journal Impact Factor) in funding, hiring and promotion, and to assess research on its own merits across diverse outputs.
How it is used
Advisory guidance only — it is not an impact framework and is not counted among the twenty sources. It informs each metric’s responsible-use flag (encouraged / responsible / care / discouraged).
Visit sfdora.org ↗
LERU
LERU — Next-Generation Metrics for Scientific and Scholarly Research in Europe
League of European Research Universities · 2022
Advice paper on responsible, contextual next-generation metrics: beyond bibliometrics, field normalisation, openness, and metrics complementary to (not a substitute for) peer review.
How it is used
Advisory guidance only — it is not an impact framework and is not counted among the twenty sources. It informs each metric’s responsible-use flag (encouraged / responsible / care / discouraged).
Visit www.leru.org ↗
VERITY
VERITY Protocol — Recommendations for Strengthening Societal Trust in Science
VERITY (Horizon Europe project) · 2024
Recommendations to reward societal contributions, public engagement, openness and inclusive credit as part of trustworthy, responsible research assessment.
How it is used
Advisory guidance only — it is not an impact framework and is not counted among the twenty sources. It informs each metric’s responsible-use flag (encouraged / responsible / care / discouraged).
Visit cordis.europa.eu ↗

Framework coverage at a glance

How each source is represented in the Codex: the impact types it covers, the number of indicators, metrics and ways to measure it contributes (counting both primary metrics and independent corroborations), the share of the 12 stakeholder types it touches, and its balance of forward-looking promise versus realised proof metrics. Counts reflect every metric in which the source appears, so they overlap across frameworks by design.

Scholarly impactEducational impactOrganizational impactPolicy impactSocietal impactEconomic & Financial impactReputational impact
#FrameworkImpact types coveredIndicatorsMetricsMeasuresStakeholder
coverage
Promise : Proof
Established frameworks (16)
1AACSB AACSB International 6/72510512412/1235 : 70
2EQUIS EFMD Quality Improvement System 7/720596812/1214 : 45
3AMBA Association of MBAs 3/7611128/122 : 9
4BGA Business Graduates Association 6/712384311/124 : 34
5BSIS Business School Impact System 6/72915816512/1230 : 128
6PRME Principles for Responsible Management Educatio 3/7411146/127 : 4
7KEF Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF5) & Ulrichse 6/713344211/124 : 30
8FT Financial Times Research Insights ranking 2025 6/712141410/121 : 13
9ISI Clarivate Societal Impact Framework: A guide t 7/721394610/1211 : 28
10EC KV EU study on metrics and indicators for knowled 5/714637012/128 : 55
11RRBM Responsible Research in Business & Management 2/7411138/127 : 4
12THE Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2025 (S 1/7211137/123 : 8
13LE London Economics / UUK 2/7727339/120 : 27
14RII EU JRC 6/71323269/125 : 18
15EIT European Institute of Innovation & Technology 4/7619218/120 : 19
16SciVal Elsevier Research Metrics 3/7925287/128 : 17
Innovator (frontier) sources (4)
17ABDC ABDC Societal Impact Framework for business-sc 4/713263811/126 : 20
18PIR Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools (D 4/75885/123 : 5
19CIVIC Civic University Network 6/71138429/128 : 30
204GU 4th Generation University 5/71119219/124 : 15

Coloured squares are impact types (hover for names). The bar shows promise (blue) to proof (green).

About this model — descriptions of every element

Intended use. The Impact Codex is a test facility for research and learning only. It synthesises and reorganises a portfolio of publicly available impact frameworks for academic study and peer review; each source framework remains the property of its authors and is governed by its own terms. Using the Codex's contents to produce reports, rankings, or commentary intended for commercial distribution, or any use by commercial parties, is not permitted without prior written authorisation from the author.

Disclaimer — AI-assisted construction. The Impact Codex was developed with AI assistance (Claude, by Anthropic) within Anthropic's Cowork environment — for the reading and semantic mapping of the source frameworks, the taxonomy synthesis, the validation-proxy and responsible-use design, the codex repository, and the interactive build. AI tools can make mistakes. Source citations were drawn from the original framework documents and checked against them, but the synthesis itself — how each metric is routed, scored and flagged — should be read as reasoned scholarly judgement rather than authoritative fact, and the original framework consulted when a result will inform a decision. If you spot something that looks off — a misattributed indicator, a questionable routing, or a framework we've missed — please flag it back to the author so the next build can correct it.

Limitations to keep in mind. The Codex is a synthesis, not a measurement of any institution. The four validation proxies (relevance, source robustness, source fidelity, credible innovation) are transparency signals about how well a metric is grounded in the source frameworks — not verdicts on quality or importance. Relevance is computed from the Codex's own tags, so it surfaces inconsistencies but cannot catch a coherent mis-mapping. The responsible-use flags are advisory guidance from the responsible-metrics movement (DORA, LERU, VERITY), not rules. Coverage reflects the frameworks included so far and will shift as more are added.

Author: Wilfred Mijnhardt — Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University Rotterdam; and Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University (EBS-HWU). ORCID: 0000-0001-9066-0798 · LinkedIn: wilfredmijnhardt.
Build: Edition 2026.2 (v2.0) · Claude Opus 4.8.
Tooling: Claude (Anthropic) in Cowork for framework analysis, synthesis and HTML build; Python for the codex repository (JSON / SQLite) and the Excel datasheet.