The combination of worldwide fiscal austerity, demands for greater accountability for public expenditures, and the development of powerful new tools for collecting and interpreting massive amounts of data about science and technology (S&T) investments has led to a new focus on developing and using advanced methods to assess the impacts of S&T investments on societies and economies. This session will examine the promise of these new tools to provide useful information to policy-makers and will explore what will be required to set up an internationally consistent approach to performing and reporting such information. The session will also address the limitations of these tools and the possible pitfalls associated with their use, along with alternative approaches that are under active development.