Developments in Social Impact Assessment: An introduction to a collection of seminal research papers

This Edward Elgar research collection comprises 50 of the key journal articles in the field of social impact assessment (SIA) as it has developed over time. As discussed in more detail below and in the papers in this collection, the general understanding of SIA has changed over time, and will likely continue to change into the future. SIA is now understood to be the process of managing the social issues associated with a planned intervention (i.e. project, policy, plan or program). The approach used in SIA is also applied to assess the impacts of a disaster, however, SIA is primarily intended to be an ex-ante (in advance) mechanism to anticipate likely social issues associated with planned interventions and to address them through management actions or by changing the planned intervention. Ex-post assessment is also important to improve the knowledge base used to make ex-ante judgements. SIA can be applied to policies, programs, and plans although the majority of attention has been at the project level.