Date: June 20, 2022, 15.00 - 16.00
Venue: Online. Participants will recieve a Zoom-link closer to the event.
Fee: Free
Registration deadline: June 19, 2022
Speaker: Andrew G. Gibson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Aarhus University
Abstract
Discussion of the societal impact of research has become prominent in higher education recent years. This is also the case in Denmark, though perhaps unusually this is not in response to the introduction of a formal research evaluation process, such as the Research Excellence Framework, REF in the UK, or the Netherlands' Standard Evaluation Protocol. As a consequence of this, Danish discussions of ‘societal impact’ are an interesting frame through which to understand the variety of ways this can be understood prior to the inevitable narrowing that takes place when a formal policy is introduced. This talk takes a ‘nomadological’ approach to policy, using institutional policies, national policies, and interviews with heads of humanities graduate schools. It will outline both some aspects of how societal impact is understood, and also what this tells us about power in the governance of Danish higher education.