Making Universities Matter

The project concerns how universities act in society, how they intersect and collaborate with societal actors of various kinds, and how that interaction shapes the way the perform their research function but also out research and collaboration, education and training.

Expected results and effects:
The project is aimed to produce research of high international standard and relevance but also support and underpin collaborative strategies among research funders (such as Vinnova), government agencies, and universities.

Approach and implementation:
The project is organized in the form of a large number of case studies of specific aspects of collaboration, such as how universities recruit and promote their staff, how their technology transfer and collaboration functions are organized, how they design and devise training and research more generally. The case studies are conjoined via a common theoretical and methodological framework, as well as through a comparative perspective.