News: Apr 04, 2019
For the past few years, the Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development, has been educating doctoral students in how they can achieve greater penetration for their research outside of academia. Another 20-odd doctoral students have now completed the course.
About 20 doctoral students, most of whom come from Chalmers, completed the Research to Policy for Sustainable Development course in April, headed by the Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development (GMV). The course comprises a total of 3 credits, and is one of Chalmers’ elective courses in personal and professional development*. The purpose of the course is, among other things, to strengthen participants’ ability to communicate about their research with decision makers and other important stakeholders, thereby contributing to the research results creating greater benefit to sustainable development.
“As a researcher, it is important to know both the opportunities and the risks involved in cooperating more with the surrounding society, and to understand that there are tools you can use to achieve success,” explains Anders Ekbom, Deputy Director at GMV and Course Director.
“There is increasing research on how science and politics interact. It is this research, combined with both our own and other researchers’ experiences, that we have based this course on,” he says.
Colleague Daniel Slunge, Researcher and Advisor at GMV's Environmental Economics and Policy Group, is one of the main teachers of the course and emphasises the importance of researchers making conscious choices about how and with whom they interact.
“Funding providers and universities are increasingly demanding more cooperation. It is therefore something you need to learn. Yet, time is a finite resource, so you need to be strategic and systematic in your approach.”
One of the participants in the course was Maria Landqvist, doctoral student at the Department of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers. She is researching how start-up companies become established and create relationships with existing players in the market. She applied to the course because of an increased need to reach out.
“I knew we needed to get stakeholders involved in our research when I received funding from the Swedish Energy Agency, and there is no obvious path to finding support internally for us doctoral students,” she explains.
Through the course, she learned things like identifying which players may be interested in her research and prioritising the ones that are most important in terms of reaching decision makers. It was an eye-opener for her when she realised that you can reach and influence them indirectly.
“Until now, I thought it was only possible to influence policy by being active in politics. I have now seen that you can influence indirectly by way of companies that have major influence,” she explains.
Maria thinks the course should be mandatory for all doctoral students at Chalmers.
“We have a responsibility to share our research and give something back to society, in part because our funding often comes from the taxpayers. To do this, you need to learn the tools to be able to communicate about your research.”
Read more about how Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development works in the Research to Policy field
*Since 2012, doctoral students at Chalmers are required to take a selection of Generic Transferable Skills (GTS) courses. The purpose is to prepare doctoral students for different career opportunities both within and outside of academia.
Read more about the courses here
