Our research creates value for and with society

The Department of Design, Media and Educational Science (IDMU) is one of two departments at the Faculty of Humanities and covers research within library science, design, philosophy, information science, media studies, organisational communication, language acquisition, educational science and web communication. IDMU is characterised by academic diversity and houses strong research environments with both monodisciplinary and interdisciplinary profiles. 

IDMU’s research creates value for and with society by contributing – across many different fields – to the understanding of humans and their role in the world in relation to knowledge, cognition, values, education, learning, the objects we surround ourselves with and the technology and the media we interact with. IDMU’s researchers proactively identify and address future societal challenges and focus on people, social relations and values. Through this, IDMU’s research contributes to solutions to major societal challenges: climate, environment, health, education, IT, social inequality and mental well-being, etc.   

IDMU’s researchers work ambitiously and strive for research excellence in terms of originality, high quality and indispensability in the international scientific community. They participate in and contribute to research communities (both nationally and internationally) at the highest level within their academic fields through publications, conference participation, networking and research projects.

They engage in interdisciplinary collaborations with other researchers, both in humanities-based projects and in projects defined by other main fields.  They collaborate with actors from the surrounding society to investigate, explain and solve challenges. Additionally, they communicate their research to a broader public through regular degree programs (bachelor’s and master’s) as well as through continuing and further education (including professional master’s programs and upskilling courses), public sector services, lectures and media appearances.  

In several areas, IDMU’s research stands out as unique – either as the only one of its kind nationally or through a distinctive profile compared to related fields internationally. And in all areas, IDMU’s researchers excel at bringing their research into play by seeking out and cultivating collaboration with other researchers and external actors. 

The overall goal of the strategy period is to strengthen IDMU’s research position in terms of quality, uniqueness, collaboration and relevance. This will be achieved by maintaining academic diversity and strong collaboration with the surrounding world, strengthening both individual and collective research activities, and identifying and specifically supporting excellent environments. In doing so, we can maintain, develop and increase the value we create for and with society.  

IDMU’s research groups/programmes 
Researchers at the institute collaborate within research groups and programs focused on the above-mentioned areas, providing a structure that supports and enhances research at both individual and collective levels. Research groups/programmes are established based on shared epistemological interests and may be situated within individual subject areas or span across academic disciplines. However, the collaboration is not only driven by a shared interest in knowledge, but also by the fact that the academic staff’s tasks are so diverse that they cannot be solved individually or all at once.  

IDMU’s researchers continuously define and engage in research project collaborations – both within the Department and with external partners. Researchers from IDMU are thus part of groups established for specific projects. Projects may have a limited lifespan, e.g. defined by a grant, or they can evolve into new projects. 

Not least as a result of the department merger in 2023, the research groups/programmes are characterised by a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of size, composition and establishment status. For this reason, the objectives for the individual environments during the strategy period are expected to differ. However, in all cases, they will have to relate to the objective of strengthening research quality; the environment’s unique contribution to the research field; its opportunities for external collaboration and its contribution to realising SDU’s overall strategy for increasing external funding.

All research groups/programmes are required to have a strategy that – within the framework of SDU’s, the Faculty of Humanities’ and IDMU’s strategy – demonstrates the group’s/programme’s academic identity, academic ambition, academic collaboration and division of tasks in relation to research activities such as publication, conference participation, project applications, external collaboration and academic citizenship. 

The research groups/programmes formulate and reformulate their objectives annually in a document that forms the basis for a GRUS performance review with the department leadership and for follow-up dialogue between the heads of research groups/programmes and the head of department.  

Department centres 
IDMU houses a number of centres whose task is to bring the Department’s research into play in relation to external partners. They may include other researchers and research units from SDU or other research institutions or practitioners and public or private institutions.  

The centres have a special outreach obligation, including in terms of dissemination, and thus play a special role in raising awareness and visibility of research within a number of strategically designated areas. 

The centres at IDMU differ in terms of organisation and funding and are therefore subject to different obligations and financial conditions. The Department’s role in relation to the centres varies accordingly. Similar to research groups and programmes, the centres have a strategy that explicitly outlines academic goals and activities. 

Value, quality, people. SDU towards 2030
Below is a description of how IDMU will realise the overall strategic goals of SDU’s 2030 strategy, as specified in the Faculty of Humanities' strategy for research (only available in Danish).

The description should be understood as a research strategy, but it also considers the other elements of the Faculty’s strategy (education, collaboration and organisation). Additionally, it incorporates the strategic goals from SDU’s strategy for external research funding. 

This strategy document is a dynamic document that will need to be regularly revisited, evaluated and possibly revised in relevant forums such as the leadership group, forum for heads of research and the Department Council. In addition, the document should inform and be informed by the research units’ local strategies. 

Freedom of research 
For research to be ambitious, innovative and potentially groundbreaking, researchers must have the freedom to define questions and choose the materials and methods to answer them.  In a time characterised by the politicisation of research, financial restrictions and an ever-increasing focus on external funding, it is imperative that we continuously focus on ensuring freedom of research, so that it is the researchers who formulate the research questions and determine how they can be answered.  

Quality in research 

SDU’s 2030 strategy has an explicit focus on improving the quality of research across the University. Even better research will create even greater value for surrounding society.  At Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, the ambition is to increase the quality of research across the Department’s areas of research. We will do this through the actions listed below, which are detailed in the following sections: 

• Consolidating and developing excellent research environments – characterised not only by hosting outstanding researchers, but equally by fostering strong research collaboration 
• Collaborating continuously with international peers and establishing and expanding international networks 
• Recruiting top researchers – from PhD fellows to full professors – as well as the best technical and administrative staff 
• Developing careers and skills for both temporary and permanent researchers and technical-administrative staff 
• Securing and increasing external research funding 
• Consolidating and developing our cooperation with the surrounding society 
• Ensuring and improving the physical and mental working environment and promoting good collaboration within the Department

Consolidating and developing excellent research environments
The organisation of research collaboration at IDMU is described in the Background Note on research organisation at the departments at the Faculty of Humanities, SDU (link: research organisation (engelsk) dokument)

Research collaboration within IDMU’s research groups/programmes provides the framework for conducting research of high – and potentially excellent – quality. Research work that leads to publications, conference papers, research applications and collaboration and engagement with society may take place as either individual or collective activities by the researchers.

However, regardless of the form, the quality of the research will be enhanced through the collegial discussions, criticism and feedback made possible by collaboration within the research groups and research programmes.  The research groups and programmes are thus the key forum for reflection on and discussion of research quality and excellence in the field and the resulting ambitious and long-term plans for members’ publications, projects, dissemination and collaboration with the surrounding society. 

The research groups and programmes must work on establishing, maintaining and developing national and not least international networks. This will ensure international research collaboration on publications, conferences, projects – both for the individual researchers and for research groups/programmes. It will also create opportunities for PhD students and established researchers to experience a change of environment, provide access to relevant recruitment forums, enable exchange activities and offer external perspectives on the work of the group/programme. The department leadership prioritises supporting network building and change of environment, partly financially and partly by striving for flexibility in relation to other work tasks. 

IDMU’s research groups/programmes bear a large part of the responsibility for the academic education of the Department’s PhD students. Every PhD student s affiliated with a research group/programme that will constitute the closest departmental academic community during their PhD studies.

This means that the research group/programme is the forum for programme activities, project presentations and academic discussions relevant to the PhD projects. The heads of research groups/programmes hold the overall responsibility for these activities, but all members of the group/programme are expected to actively contribute to the PhD student’s education. The research group/programme is provided with financial and time resources to undertake this task. 

Research groups/programmes should explore and exploit opportunities to involve talented students in their activities. Depending on the nature of the research group’s/programme’s connection to the education programmes, this may take place in connection with, or as an extension of, teaching within a given programme, or in the form of activities offered to talented students across programmes. 

In order for the groups/programmes to effectively support collaboration among members and thereby strengthen research quality, it is important that they function optimally – both professionally and collegially. Each researcher must commit to the collaboration and contribute to building a culture in which members, within a respectful and trusting community, can be ambitious and goal-oriented. Cohesion, collaboration and shared research ambition within the groups/programmes can be supported by joint activities such as joint publications, joint conference participation and writing retreats. 

This also requires that the heads of research groups/programmes possess the right skills to create space for and develop research collaboration. Regardless of career stage and job category, heads of research groups/programmes must be provided with the best opportunities to fulfil their role as academic leaders through adequate skills development and opportunities for collegial discussions with internal and external peers. In order for heads of research to best fulfil their role as academic leaders without staff responsibility, coordination between heads of research and staff managers must be ensured and developed. 

The content specification and the final realisation of IDMU’s strategy take place through the work of the researchers and is anchored in the research groups/programmes. Ensuring alignment across the Department and the best possible conditions for the work of the research groups/programmes takes place through continuous dialogue between the members of the research group/programme, heads of research groups/programmes and the department leadership – e.g. in the form of annual evaluation reviews and GRUS.

Recruitment and onboarding 

The prerequisite for creating excellent research is excellent researchers. When recruiting, we must focus on attracting ambitious and internationally leading researchers who can contribute to and create value for IDMU. In recruitment, we must focus on being – and presenting ourselves as – an attractive workplace for potential applicants. This includes ensuring recruitment processes that make our vacancies visible to the best candidates and, to the extent possible, ensure a strong match between the candidate and IDMU.  

In this context, we need to focus on, among other things: 

• Carefully considering and using job categories strategically, including tenure-track assistant professorships and employment as associate professor within SDU’s promotion programme 
• Ensuring job postings have a clear profile aligned with our strategic direction and the tasks to be addressed, while avoiding unnecessarily narrow postings that may exclude strong candidates 
• Highlighting in job advertisements and other presentations that IDMU is an international workplace with experience, focus, and tradition of including international employees, ensuring positions appeal to international candidates 
• Publicising vacancies widely through our own networks, national and international partners’ forums, and by proactively approaching potential applicants and strong candidates 
• Composing assessment and employment committees to enable balanced evaluations of applicants 
• Maximising value in each step of the recruitment process to ensure a clear understanding of applicants’ qualities and optimal opportunities for collaboration 

Recruitment and affiliation of outstanding researchers also take place under the auspices of programmes such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and Carlsberg reintegration. Research groups/programmes must work strategically and purposefully with their international networks to utilise these and similar instruments. 

IDMU’s onboarding processes must take place in close collaboration between the various relevant actors (department leadership, heads of research groups/programmes, PhD supervisor and head of studies) to ensure that the new employee receives sufficient and timely information and opportunities to engage in academic and collegial collaboration as quickly and effectively as possible. IDMU also offers new employees a buddy/mentor to help with questions big and small. 

Onboarding processes must consider the specific challenges and needs that international employees may face in becoming familiar with not only SDU and IDMU, but also with Denmark. IDMU must work closely with the International Staff Office and new international employees will be offered an international buddy/mentor.  

For newly appointed staff in qualification positions (assistant professors, tenure-track assistant professors and associate professors in SDU’s promotion programme), onboarding provides an important space for aligning expectations. It is crucial that plans can be made here for the qualification process, which can subsequently serve as benchmarks in performance and development reviews (MUS) and other forms of dialogue. 

The Department’s onboarding processes must also take into account IDMU employees transitioning from one job category to another. Space must be created for aligning expectations and plans with the relevant parties. 

Career and skills development 

It is a basic condition that Department of Design, Media and Educational Science includes both permanent and temporary employees. This requires the Department to take both groups into account in its ambition to ensure high-quality career and skills development. 

In dialogue and collaboration with the staff manager – above all during performance and development reviews (MUS) – each employee should set an ambitious and realistic career development plan. For permanent employees, this plan may include the development of their task portfolio, skills enhancement, and advancement opportunities.

For temporary employees, the dialogue should include career opportunities within or outside academia and the necessary skills development to support the plans. Both the Department and the research group/programme must also consider how national and international networks can support the further career opportunities of temporary staff. 

Department of Design, Media and Educational Science must make use of – and contribute to – the further development of SDU skills development offerings (e.g. Research Academy, SDU’s staff courses, researcher support services and RIO’s competence assessment programmes), and support employees’ access to external skills development opportunities when this is most relevant. In addition, IDMU must make strategic use of the promotion to professor programme to support research focus areas and strengths as well as retention.   

More about securing external research funding 

External funding for research by Department of Design, Media and Educational Science is essential for maintaining and developing the Department’s research activities – and, not least, to attract new employees to the Department.  

Implementing SDU’s ambitious funding strategy presents different challenges across IDMU. In some environments, the challenge lies in building up application and project experience. In others, it is about finding time for the research task across multiple ongoing projects.

The specific challenges in IDMU’s research groups/programmes must be addressed in their strategies and handled in collaboration between the research group/programme and department leadership. 

Achieving the goal of increased external research funding depends on research groups/programmes working ambitiously and coherently with the funding agenda. It also requires an open dialogue about opportunities, objectives and needs for skills development and support between department leadership, research group leadership, and the members of the research groups and research programmes.

Another particular focus point is the anchoring of research projects in the research groups/programmes to ensure a grant leads to a strengthening rather than a depopulation of these groups and programmes.  

It is also essential to acknowledge that high-quality project applications are a prerequisite – but unfortunately not a guarantee – for securing funding. We need to focus on recognition, even when applications are unsuccessful, and on supporting and motivating researchers not to give up on a good project idea, but to work on it and employ it in new applications.  

Success in the application phase requires that the path from the excellent research idea to the conception of the excellent research project to the excellent research application is supported in the best possible way. This requires, not least, that the researchers have sufficient (continuous) time for the task.

It is the department leadership’s task to ensure this to the extent possible, partly through hourly compensation and partly through appropriate planning of the other work tasks. 

The quality of projects and applications is also ensured through relevant support from, for instance, staff from the Department’s and Faculty’s financial and researcher support services, as well as SDU RIO and through internal peer feedback.

In order to maximise the benefits of these processes, the different parties must have the time and ability to complete the task. We must therefore maintain a continuous focus on how to ensure effective and flexible processes when preparing applications. 

During the strategy period, IDMU will also work with the Faculty to improve post-award support, allowing researchers to concentrate more on the research task at hand. 

The Department’s academic diversity is reflected in a variety of funding opportunities, both national and international, public and private. We must maintain our strengths in relation to the national and international funding opportunities we are currently utilising, while working to explore new opportunities. The latter applies, among other things, in relation to collaboration with foundations that can result in customised grants.  

At the time of writing, SDU’s funding strategy focuses in particular on EU funds and centres funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. Application work aimed at these funds is supported by financial and time incentives at SDU, faculty and department level and by strategic initiatives at faculty level. 

More about working with the surrounding society 

Department of Design, Media and Educational Science has a strong tradition and a particular strength in bringing research into play through collaboration with the surrounding society. Our researchers continue to prove that humanities research is both important and indispensable for addressing today’s challenges and ensuring a sustainable future.

Through collaborations with, among others, municipalities, ministries, the education, culture and healthcare sectors and private companies, our research contributes perspectives and solutions to challenges such as climate, mental well-being among young and elderly people, digitalisation and AI, inequality, education and learning. We must continue to take social responsibility and contribute to a sustainable world through our research and collaborations, and we must strive to ensure structures and working conditions at Department of Design, Media and Educational Science that support this. 

The Department’s research also benefits society at large through our researchers’ participation in expert committees, their expert appearances in the media and their participation in public education through lectures, debates, etc.

It is crucial that researchers have the desire, time and motivation to continue to bring their research into play in these ways, while ensuring that the other tasks also receive the necessary attention. It is the responsibility of department leadership to ensure that these tasks are acknowledged and incentivised, and that there is clarity about how they should be prioritised. 

The Department's centres in particular play a key role in this regard, both as a hub for interdisciplinary research and as a key player in international collaborations. The centres typically have a different organisational structure than research groups and programmes, which means that the Department’s and department leadership’s role in strengthening and supporting the activities will be less direct.

However, a particular focus during the strategy period will be to work with steering committees (and in some cases boards) to ensure support for centres’ development opportunities and the role of heads of centre. 

More about our efforts towards departmental collaboration and the working environment 

Department of Design, Media and Educational Science encompasses employees across a wide range of job categories in both academic and technical-administrative tracks. Everyone plays a role in realising IDMU’s strategic goals, which can only be achieved through trusting, respectful and seamless collaboration.  

Department of Design, Media and Educational Science is an international workplace, as some employees have non-Danish backgrounds and citizenship and generally do not speak Danish. Making sure that everyone feels included at IDMU requires a joint effort, characterised by respect for cultural and linguistic differences.

Research groups/programmes,  fagkollegier (academic clusters) and the Department should continuously discuss how to manage this effort, and it is encouraged that the most appropriate working language practices are discussed at group level. At department level, the administrative language is Danish, but daily practice is based on an ideal of parallel language use (Danish and English) to ensure that all employees have access to information and can participate in the Department’s work.  

Department of Design, Media and Educational Science has an inherent challenge in terms of cohesion as a department with employees on three campuses. This makes in-person meetings more difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

Leadership and employees must jointly apply, develop and test formats to ensure existing collaborations across campuses and enable the conversations that allow new collaborations to emerge. In this regard, special attention should be given to creating opportunities for PhD students to meet across the three campuses.