Our wellbeing as a society rests over knowledge developed and accummulated over history, with research and other academic activities being at the heart of this contribution. Excellence research, innovation, or even direct engagement with societal agents can all result on social impact, each of them likely doing so on very different time scales. Within an institutional context that already requires our research projects (at the European level, for example) have not only scientific and economic, but also societal impact, aĀ number of key issues will be presented – how much control can we have of ourĀ researchĀ impact, – the importance of planning for impact, – how a sufficient level of traceability can be achieved in order to document that our work hasĀ contributed to specific social impacts. Some examples of failed and succesful impactĀ processes will be brought forward, as well as a plausibleĀ institutionalĀ repository model for monitoring social impact. Without such resources and tools, every time we complete a section on our Ā«achieved social impact » we might be failing to use what we call Ā«the scientific methodĀ».