Impact Assessment 2018 University of Agder - School of Business and Law
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IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2 IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018 UNIVERSITY OF AGDER - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND LAW DEFINING IMPACT UNIVERSITY OF AGDER - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND LAW IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018 3 The school’s mission informs the way we define impact. Our development of knowledge in close partnership with our mission statement is: ‘We co-create knowledge by applying stakeholders, and we place particular emphasis on creating international, innovative and responsible perspectives’. We knowledge that has relevance and use for our partners and the implement this mission by educating responsible professionals wider society. with a global mindset and innovative attitude, as well as by doing relevant research that allows us to collaborate with strong OUR SYSTEM FOR MEASURING IMPACT international partners. We also implement this mission by The impact assessment follows a set structure where we report interacting closely with businesses, state institutions and civil on how our activities have produced positive effects, changes society to develop and disseminate knowledge. or benefits for our stakeholders in areas associated with responsible, innovative and international dimensions. It ends with In our strategy we are aiming to build a distinct profile in the a presentation of some basic metrics related to our graduates and Norwegian market for business education as a university-based to our research. The impact assessment is intended to serve as a and innovative business school, offering unique international supplement to the Quality report’, which is submitted by the school and practice-oriented experiences to our students. This work to the university board every spring. is informed by our vision, which is to be regionally connected and globally engaged. We want to further strengthen our close Given our emphasis on co-creation it is particularly important for cooperative relations with regional actors and further develop our us to trace the impact of our intellectual contributions in general, ties to international partners. and that of our research in particular. We believe the best way to investigate the impact from our research is to trace the interplay Given this framework the impact we aim for as a business school between research and wider social and political processes in has a particular set of features. Broadly speaking, impact has to in-depth qualitative case studies. We are using the template do with how our research and other intellectual output contribute provided by the UKs Research Excellence Framework (REF) for to the academic fields we operate in, as well as the difference our these case studies. Each annual impact assessment has one or research, teaching and other activities makes for businesses, more in-depth case studies. In this year’s report we present our government entities and the wider society. Our mission compels us impact on the growing crowd-funding industry. This is primarily to narrow this broad understanding to one where we aim for strong associated with the theme innovative, but also relates well to the impact in academic fields associated with the terms ‘innovative’, themes international and responsible. ‘international’ and ‘responsible’. Our educational activities and outreach are also shaped by our emphasis on innovation, We complement this in-depth section with more current highlights international dimensions and responsibility: it is primarily through from the recent year, and we draw on both qualitative and our expertise in these fields that we aim to make a difference for quantitative methods when generating the necessary data for this. business and the wider society. Three sources are particularly important here: a) the university runs a large-scale quantitative survey of recent graduates that Our key stakeholders in this are our students, academic peers in offers a number of indications on how our educational offering has relevant scholarly fields, as well as businesses and government impacted on our graduates as well as the impact they generate in entities. It is particularly important to contribute positively to their new professional roles; b) we have restructured the annual entities residing in our own region, although entities at national development conversation between scholarly staff and their and international levels are sometimes relevant. managers, placing more emphasis on recording and discussing the employee’s research, engagement and outreach; c) we have a We bring a number of high-quality inputs to this effort: We are part regular newsletter that the management issues to all staff, here of a modern and well-funded public university that offers faculty most of our prominent research and outreach activities are noted. members designated time to do research and to engage with This makes the newsletters from one full year a valuable source to stakeholders; we have a strong portfolio of faculty members, which consult. over the past three years has been bolstered by the recruitment of several high calibre researchers; the high number of applicants We note that time is a challenge when reporting on impact. to our courses ensures that the students who enter our school Our activities may have direct and immediate impact, or they are bright and motivated; and our long standing and collaborative may unfold later and be more long term. Activities and visible relations with a number of business and government stakeholders impacts from the past year receive priority in our annual impact in our region and beyond is an important asset in its own right for assessment, but we will also use the opportunity to highlight the school. impact stemming from activities prior to the year of reporting. This is especially so for the in-depth case study. The concept of co-creation captures the mode of cooperation in many of these relationships. We see co-creation as the 4 IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018 UNIVERSITY OF AGDER - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND LAW MISSION AND IMPACT UNIVERSITY OF AGDER - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND LAW IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018 5 INNOVATIVE The school places strong emphasis on innovation. Around twenty innovation. The Centre has as its aim to develop activities related percent of our scholarly staff has innovation or entrepreneurship to five areas: as one of their main areas of specialisation. We offer a master a. A PhD education in work life and innovation, programme in Innovation and Knowledge Management and we have two centres in this field: Centre for Advanced Studies b. cooperation with the industrial clusters in the region, in Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) and the Centre for c. providing background knowledge for policy making and Entrepreneurship. regional planning strategies, In the following we highlight some prominent examples of impact d. further develop the Master education in innovation and from the previous year. We also present an alumni illustration and knowledge development and an in-depth case study. e. international research collaboration. The Centre has over the years worked actively in these areas, supporting PhD and For the previous year we note considerable impact in this field, master candidates, international conferences and attracted examples include: research funding. In 2017, important ground work was done in preparation for the 2018 international conference; Coping with › Our Centre for Entrepreneurship arranged four courses where the future, with focus on changes in work life and business as a total of 63 bachelor students developed business models and a consequence of transformation towards sustainability and undertook market research for 26 real life business projects. digitalization. Twenty-five of these projects were business ideas that the students initiated themselves. Since the initiation of the Centre › Dr Jon Paschen Knudsen was in 2017 appointed member of the in 2005 over 350 entrepreneurial projects and businesses Governmental Expert Committee on the Regional Reform by the have been processed by the Centre, close to 200 of which have Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. The committee been in collaboration with external companies and start-up gives, among other issues, advice on how the role of regional entrepreneurs. governments in fostering regional development can be further strengthened. He has previously been nominated by the same › The Centre for advanced studies in regional innovation strategy Ministry as the Norwegian ESPON contact point (ECP) to the EU (RIS) was established in 2010 with financial support from the for the period 2015-2018. two counties in our region (Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder) and Sørlandets kompetansefond. It is a collaboration between the › Dr Anne Wenche Emblem contributed to the Norwegian Research University of Agder (School of Business and Law) and Agder Council financed project on developing medical support to Research (now part of NORCE). The Centre is also the coordinator chronically ill via the internet (‘Felles telemedisinsk løsning på of a research group on regional innovation systems and work Agder’). The regional hospital and three municipalities in the life, with its main location at Department of working life and Agder region are among the other participants in the project. 6 IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018 UNIVERSITY OF AGDER - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND LAW CASE STUDY: PIONEERING CROWDFUNDING 5. Work related to the Cambridge Annual Alternative Finance RESEARCH SUPPORTS A NASCENT INDUSTRY Industry Reports has formed an important part of this AND SHAPES EUROPEAN REGULATIONS research. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance is building up a database on crowdfunding and the UIA School of Business and Law is a lead co-author of the report, as well SUMMARY OF IMPACT as a full research partner throughout the data collection and The UIA School of Business and Law is an ‘early mover’ in report write-up. Naturally, UIA takes lead in coverage of the research on crowdfunding. We have gained a privileged position Nordic region, but has also been responsible for other regional as the facilitator of the Nordic crowdfunding alliance. In the past analyses (including but not limited to the Baltics and BENELUX two years we have given advice and input to seven European countries).