Collaboration and social impact are all about engaging with the world outside university. This can be done in many ways, with different kinds of partners, and at different stages in the research process. The reasons for collaboration also vary. You may want to achieve higher quality in your research by getting access to expertise held by organisations, or learn about, and from, actors or groups of professionals that may use your scientific knowledge. Perhaps you strive to make your research benefit disadvantaged groups in society.
One way of collaborating is to design your research question with a non-academic partner – a public body, a corporation, or a non-governmental organization. Another is to subject preliminary research results to discussion and feedback from various groups of potential users. You can make your research useful by developing new methods or routines for a particular target group – teachers, say, or nurses – or by making your results inform policy around urban development or marine government, for instance. Commercialization of new products or services is another way to utilize research.
For a number of research councils and funders, collaboration and social impact are central aspects of research proposals, and the success of your application partly depends on how well you plan for and describe relevant and feasible collaboration and utilization.
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