External colloqium: Social Impact Assessment: a field of applied sociology by prof. Frank Vanclay (RUG)

Abstract: 
The field of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) emerged in the 1970s
alongside Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and is now over 50
years old. Evolving over time, SIA is now regarded as being the
process of managing the social issues associated with designing and
implementing projects, and is similar to what is often called ‘social
performance’ and ‘social practice’. Although SIA has the same origins
as EIA, it is now known that social impacts are very different in how
they play out. Although in most jurisdictions there is a lack of
effective legislation or regulation requiring SIA, SIA is regularly
undertaken because it is a requirement in various international
standards (especially as demanded by international financial
institutions/development banks), it is an expected part of good
corporate practice, and is a community expectation. However, a lack of
experienced practitioners and the lack of certification of
practitioners in most jurisdictions means that SIA tends to be done
poorly. Consequently, although SIA is intended to represent and
protect community interests in project development, sometimes SIA has
only facilitated inappropriate development. This paper discusses: what
SIA is; how SIA has changed over time; how SIA is implied by
international standards; the gap between international standards and
legal requirements; the business case for SIA; and what SIA needs to
do into the future.

BIOSKETCH

Frank Vanclay is now professor of social impact assessment and
management in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences. From 2010 to recently,
he was Head of the Department of Cultural Geography in that Faculty.
Before coming to Groningen, he was professor of rural sociology at the
University of Tasmania in Australia. He describes himself as a
transdisciplinary social scientist interested in social impact
assessment, project-induced displacement & resettlement, business &
human rights, extractive industries & society, social licence to
operate, and a range of other topics. He is co-editor of the Open
Access 2024 Handbook of Social Impact Assessment and Management, and
with his many PhD students, has written extensively about the social
impacts of projects.