Abstract#

This conceptual article develops a systematic definition and disciplinary positioning of impact sciences, impact research, and impact economics in the framework of Natalie Weber’s Wirkungsökonomie. The article argues that existing approaches such as evaluation research, impact assessment, SROI, impact management, sustainability science, ESG reporting, the common-good economy, and doughnut economics provide important methodological and conceptual building blocks, but do not yet constitute an integrated impact architecture. The proposed impact sciences are therefore defined as an inter- and transdisciplinary framework that studies, evaluates, and feeds back real changes in states across economy, law, politics, science, media, capital, and democracy. Impact research becomes the methodological subdiscipline of this framework, while Wirkungsökonomie becomes its first fully elaborated ordering and steering discipline. The article introduces a comprehensive conceptual vocabulary including impact, impact potential, social active agent, impact mechanism, impact pathway, impact network, impact degree, impact risk, net impact, transformational impact, impact steering, and impact architecture. It concludes that Weber’s contribution lies not in the invention of impact as an object of inquiry, but in the systemic reframing of impact as a central category of social knowledge, evaluation, and governance. Keywords: impact sciences; impact research; Wirkungsökonomie; impact architecture; net impact; impact feedback; sustainability transformation; democratic resilience.