Building Research Capacity

Photo: Mette Frandsen

To strengthen the capacity to mobilise research and co-create knowledge, Queen Mary’s Centre actively fosters close collaborations between university researchers and external partners. Through these partnerships, we work to ensure that knowledge is both generated and applied in ways that address societal challenges.

At the same time, we seek to contribute to the development of a stronger institutional support infrastructure, both within and beyond the university, which can effectively leverage knowledge, resources, and expertise.

Some of Queen Mary’s Centre projects that are focused on this capacity-building goal include:

• BROKER (Bolstering Research and Organisational capacity for Knowledge-based Environmental Reform): in this project, Queen Mary’s Centre, together with the Department of Food and Resource Economics and the Department of Political Science, investigates how the University of Copenhagen can improve its strategies and partnerships aimed at providing research-based advice to public authorities. The goal of the project is to strengthen collaboration between public-sector actors and universities in the areas of climate, environmental, and agricultural policy.
• Research-Informed Policy: This project is focused on investigating the ways public authorities and politicians in Denmark access and use research-based knowledge, with the goal of strengthening the links between research and policymaking. The project involves researching international case studies to better understand other countries’ strategies for implementing research into policy, as well as interviewing Danish policymakers to better comprehend how government agencies currently use and engage with research-based knowledge, and the barriers that affect access and use of research.
• Impact Atlas: This project aims to strengthen the University of Copenhagen’s efforts to plan, support, and communicate the many ways in which new knowledge and research-based ideas contribute to society. It will do this by developing a definition of societal impact, a toolkit mapping different types of impact, and a list of indicators that can be used to assess researchers’ impact.
• Increasing Public Participation in the Danish Social Housing Sector: In this project, Queen Mary’s Centre has partnered with the Danish Social Housing Foundation to develop a strategy for increasing public participation in social housing projects. This project aims to include more residents in decision-making processes within their housing developments.
• PhD Courses on Research Impact: Queen Mary’s Centre holds ongoing courses for PhD students. One course, titled “Impact and Societal Engagement: Enhancing the usefulness of your PhD Project beyond Academia,” explores how PhD students can have a positive societal impact with their research through sustained collaboration with external partners. For those early in their PhD, the course helps provide strategies for establishing external partnerships. For those nearing the end of their PhD, the course also includes a planning exercise aimed at implementing research findings in collaboration with relevant organisations. The second course, titled “From PhD to Professional: Developing and Exploring Career Opportunities Outside of Academia,” is aimed at preparing PhD students for the next step in their career path. During the course students map their values and skills, develop a career plan, and have the opportunity to participate in an individual mentoring session with a representative from the private or public sector to discuss their career trajectory.