Knowledge Mobilization Project for the International Alliance

Transcription

1 Knowledge Mobilization Project for the International Alliance National Report Denmark MOBILIZING KNOWLEDGE IN DENMARK By Claus Holm, Vice-Dean of Communication, DPU, Aarhus University, Denmark Introduction Knowledge mobilization is not only a new expression in a Danish context. It is also an interesting concept to introduce and discuss. For doesn t knowledge mobilization have more or, at least, as much to do with politics as with education research or education in itself? Doesn t modern knowledge mobilization have to do with a new political will to mobilize the population by creating a connection between education research and education? On the basis of this report on the Danish efforts with respect to knowledge mobilization, these questions can be answered affirmatively; the extent of knowledge mobilization in relation to education research depends on the political will for it. To what extent is it present in Denmark? On one hand, it is whole-heartedly present in Denmark, where national competitive ability is formulated from an ideal of the population s competitive ability a sort of popular competition state that is to be realized by fulfilling the ambitions for comprehensive knowledge mobilization through education. 1 On the other hand, Denmark is having a hard time finding a broad consensus when what is, in principle, supposed to be a common political will is to be translated into knowledge mobilization. This lack of consensus can be traced to the political-administrative level and to the relationship between representatives of education research and representatives of the education system. So, if the concept of knowledge mobilization is not especially exploited in Denmark, it can be seen as a symptom that the will to knowledge mobilization is, in reality and until now notstrong enough to deserve the use of the expression mobilization. The other possibility is that what is conceptualized as mobilization in other countries is conceptualized in Denmark by the use of concepts such as transfer of, communication, and knowledge sharing. 1 It might be prudent to follow the Danish professor Ove K. Pedersen (2011) and recognize that the (Danish) welfarestate is in the process of being replaced by a new type of state. This new state actively mobilize the people and enterprises to compete globally, rather than (as the welfare state did) compensate and protect the people and enterprises against the effects of fluctuations in the international economical climate.. 1

2 At any rate, the analysis in this report of the relationship between education research and the education system during the period from 2000 to today shows that a change has, in fact, taken place; a change from speaking less about transfer ofknowledge transfer to speaking more about the need for research communication, knowledge exchange, and knowledge sharing. I have chosen to use the concept of knowledge mobilization in this report to summarize these changes. The report accounts for knowledge mobilization through two analyses. First, an analysis of the question of research affiliation of Danish universities with the Centers for Higher Education (CVUs)/university colleges during the period from 2000 to Second, an analysis and assessment of how the use of journalism as a form of communication has been idealized in the period from the year 2003 on with respect to creating an equal communication between universities and society, including between education research, the education system, and educational practice. The reason that these analyses generally summarize the last decade of developments in Denmark is, first of all, that the new University Act from 2003 articulated the universities duty to knowledge transfer to the surrounding society: As a central knowledge-based body and cultural repository, the university shall exchange knowledge and competencies with society and encourage its employees to take part in the public debate. (The University Act of 28 May 2003, 2.3) The exchange of knowledge includes two duties. One has to do with the exchange of knowledge and skills including the transfer oftransfer of research-based knowledge to the surrounding society in order to promote growth, welfare, and development in society as a whole. The other duty has to do with encouraging employees to participate in the public debate on social matters and to maintain and challenge society s cultural and intellectual life and values, which helps secure a free, impartial, and critical public debate (Explanatory Notes to the Draft Bill on Universities, 2003). 2 Second, the reason is that the Danish University of Education that is, the creation of the largest educational research environment in Denmark to date became a reality effective as of 1 June 2000 and, in the Act on the Danish University of Education, the duty of knowledge transfertransfer of was emphasized in particular, in the form of an obligatory research affiliation with the Centers for Higher Education. 2 This is stated in 2.3 of the applicable Danish University Act LBK no 754 of 17/06/2010. The university is supposed to cooperate with the surrounding society and contribute to the development of international cooperation. The university s research and educational results are to contribute to the promotion of growth, welfare, and development in society. The university, as a central knowledge-based body and cultural repository, is to exchange knowledge and skills with the surrounding society and encourage employees to participate in public debate. 2

3 The first analysis of the debate on research affiliation in Denmark documents different rationales (and the conflict between them) for knowledge transfertransfer of, respectively, research communication and knowledge sharing. The analysis is summarized by raising the question of whether there is sufficient political will in Denmark to support partnerships between education research and the education system. The second analysis shows that Danish researchers in general and Danish education researchers in particular provide significant contributions to the public debate. In this sense, they live up to the idea of Danish University Act to encourage its employees to take part in the public debate, but this analysis also raises a question as to its effect in part, in relation to the quality of the public debate and, in part, in relation to the endeavor of research to inform political decisions and professional educational practice in Denmark. First, before we go into these analyses, a short introduction to the organization of the Danish education research and education system. The organization of education research and education in Denmark The profile of Danish education research has been described in two research surveys from 1999 and 2004, respectively. 3 From these surveys, it appears that there is considerable breadth in Danish education research, and it appears from the most recent survey that the research is characterized by one large and many smaller research environments. The large research environment is the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University (DPU, Aarhus University). One has to go back to the year 2000 to find the institutional background for DPU, Aarhus University; DPU was established in 2000 and, after well over 7 years of existence, it was merged into Aarhus University, effective as of 1 June That is, today, DPU, Aarhus University clearly constitutes the largest Danish education research environment, measured in number of man-years. The most recent account of the size of research environments, measured in the number of academic staff man-years, goes back to 2006, see table 1, and the relative distribution of man-years at individual universities does not seem to have changed since. TABLE 1: The number of man-years devoted wholly or partially to research in education, pedagogy, and didactics 2006 Institution Number of man-years devoted wholly or partially to research in education, pedagogy, and didactics Copenhagen University 37 Aarhus University, DPU 205* University of Southern 42 Denmark 3 Lars Geer Hammershøj and Lars-Henrik Schmidt (1999): Danish Research in Education and Educational Theory and Practices A Survey of the Period , The Danish National Institute for Educational Research, and Carsten Elbro and Jens Rasmussen (2004): Contribution to Country Background Report on Educational Research in Denmark. 3

4 Roskilde University 60 Aalborg University 42 Copenhagen Business Not School calculated Source: University Reports 2006 *The number 205 is a composite of 187 man-years from the then Danish University of Education and 18 man-years from Aarhus University. The latter 18 man-years, however, does not include researchers with only minor connections to the field. DPU, Aarhus University s historical predecessor was, as mentioned, the Danish University of Education, which was created in the year 2000 by merging the Royal Danish School of Educational Studies, the Danish School of Advanced Pedagogy, and the Danish Educational Institute. The purpose was to create a leading international education research university. This meant, among other things, that DPU no longer had the responsibility to provide in-service training for teachers in primary and lower secondary schools. In the period from , this responsibility was assigned to the Centers for Higher Education (CVUs), which included teacher training colleges. Since 1 January 2008, these CVUs were gathered together into 8 cross-disciplinary and regionallybased university colleges. The purpose was to create a new framework for university colleges and vocationally-oriented institutions of higher education in order to contribute to and ensure the future of these educations. Quite concretely, the ambition was to enhance the professionalism of these educations for example, teacher education and to create more attractive study environments that could entice and retain more students. Furthermore, the general goal of the new university colleges now in existence was to exploit interdisciplinary synergy, to collaborate with universities and other research environments, and to ensure regional educational coverage. In Danish university legislation as well as in CVU legislation (from ), it was envisaged that they, the CVUs, would be research-affiliated, and this was to be ensured through cooperation agreements between the CVUs and relevant research institutions in Denmark on applied research projects or on the professional development of CVU staff. On the other hand, the Danish University of Education had a specific duty to help include CVUs in R&D projects. The purpose of the research affiliation of the CVUs was to ensure that CVUs have ready, on-going access to recent research-based knowledge, to develop the qualifications of CVU teaching staff, and to build bridges between scientific research and applied research and development. In the legislation on Danish university colleges (since 1 January), the obligation glides from being research affiliated to having the university colleges collaborate with universities. This means that Danish universities continue to be obligated to have a research affiliation, while Danish university colleges after 1 January are obligated to collaborate. The meaning of this for the connection for transfer oftransfer of transfer of knowledge and communication between the two types of institutions is demonstrated in the first major analysis below. 4

5 Analysis I: The history of research affiliation in Denmark from transfer of research-based knowledge to equal communication Research affiliation was enacted in 2000 with the Act on the Danish University of Education (DPU), the Act establishing the Centers for Higher Education (CVU), and the Act on Medium-Length Higher Education (MVU). From this overall complex of legislation, it appears that DPU and the CVUs are mutually obligated to research affiliation. Research affiliation is described as a collaboration that has as its goal to contribute to an elevation of quality and a closer connection between research and practice (Undervisningsministeriet, 2000a, p. 14), and that DPU through research affiliation must help enhance CVU teachers knowledge of pedagogy, didactics, learning, and competence development (Undervisningsministeriet, 2000a, p. 17). With a new Danish University Act in 2003, the research affiliation obligation became a part of the duties of all 12 Danish universities at that time. However, despite this mutual obligation and common objective of research affiliation, there were difficulties in establishing genuine collaborations between Danish universities and the Centers for Higher Education. Instead, a conflict arose about the character of research affiliation including whether research affiliation meant the transfer of knowledge from universities to the centers for higher education. The parties at interest in the conflict have been the scientific system, the education system, and the political system. 4 The conflict has played out among representatives of the universities including DPU, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation as the ministry in charge, the CVUs with the Danish Ministry of Education as the ministry in charge, and representatives of the political system. DPU has been and is a significant interested party in the struggle over the definition of the concept of research affiliation and, later, collaboration. This is because research affiliation from a juridical perspective has been designated as a particular task for DPU, first as an independent university and then as a school of education affiliated with Aarhus University. Similarly, this goes hand in hand with the fact that the field of pedagogy is a large part of the development and educational activities of the CVUs and university colleges at the present time. Specifically, the conflict has to do with how the concept of research affiliation is to be defined. On one hand, we have a hierarchical understanding that links research affiliation with transfer of research-based knowledgetransfer of and, on the other hand, a horizontal understanding that links research affiliation to a concept of equal communication. Quite concretely, I have divided the analysis of the struggle to define the content of research affiliation into three sections that 4 The use of the expression system refers to the fact that the analysis of the history of research affiliation has a basis in an analysis that is undertaken on the basis of Niklas Luhmann s sociological system theory. Parts of the analysis in this report can, in other words, be found in the book Viden om uddannelse. Uddannelsesforskning, pædagogik og pædagogisk praksis [Knowledge about Education: Education Research, Pedagogy, and Educational Practice] by Jens Rasmussen, Søren Kruse and Claus Holm, Hans Reitzels Forlag

6 correspond to three relatively distinct periods. The first period extends from the introduction of the concept of research affiliation in 2000 until 2003 and is analyzed under the headline: Level differences or equality. The second period extends from 2004 until 2007 and will be analyzed under the headline: Research affiliation or knowledge-sharing. Finally, I shall analyze the period from 2007 until today under the headline: Between rupture and collaboration. In the fourth summary section of the first analytic chapter, I shall assess the strategies and mechanisms that, over this ten-year period, have been used to create a transfer of knowledge or research communication between education research and the education system represented, respectively, by universities, including especially DPU, Aarhus University, and the CVUs/university colleges. Level differences or equal two-way communication In 2001, the rector of the Danish University of Education during the period from 2000 to 2007, Lars-Henrik Schmidt, defined research affiliation as an affiliation between different hierarchical levels in the education system. This occurs by emphasizing a difference in levels between the level of education at DPU, which is obligated to engage in research-based education, and the education level at the CVUs, which do not have this obligation. Lars-Henrik Schmidt draws the following conclusion from this distinction: when we talk about research affiliation, then the center of higher education is linked to research, and the research-based teaching comes from the Danish University of Education, not the other way around. The traffic is one-way and takes place by invoice. (Schmidt 2000) Taking the contrasting view were the chairperson for the CVUs Rectors Conference, Knud Munksgaard, and Danish Minister for Education Ulla Tørnæs. At a conference in 2003, Knud Munksgaard rejected the expression research affiliation. Instead, he insisted that other concepts were more appropriate for the conception of equality between universities and CVUs. The Danish Minister for Education Ulla Tørnæs backed this statement. At the Minister for Education s annual summer meeting the so-called Sorø conference with the world of education, she said the following: However, it is already clear that the concept of research affiliation must not be understood as a one-sided process in which the exchange of knowledge occurs in a close-knit sender-receiver relationship. (Undervisningsministeriet, 2003, p. 39) The conflict between the Danish Ministry of Science and DPU, on one hand, and the CVUs and the Danish Ministry of Education, on the other, culminated in 2003, when an inter-ministerial committee was appointed. The purpose of the committee s work was to enhance the function of CVUs as knowledge centers and their education without thereby bringing them under legislation on research within the purview of the Ministry of Science. (Undervisningsministeriet & Videnskabsministeriet, 2003, note 1) The result of the committee s work was that research 6

7 affiliation was still to be considered as the foundation for CVU knowledge activities, and the committee stated explicitly that research affiliation was a concept still under development and should function as two-way communication in which universities and other research institutions and CVUs collaborate as equal partners in developing and sharing knowledge on the basis of basic research knowledge from universities and practice- and application-oriented knowledge from CVUs. Research affiliation or knowledge sharing The decisive event in the period from the end of 2003 until 2007 was, without doubt, the OECD review of Danish education research and research and development work. 5 The OECD study was published in October 2004 and had great and immediate impact. This is because not only did the two ministries the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Ministry of Education occasion the review but they also subsequently made the review and its recommendations into a reference point for a number of initiatives that had to do with the question of research affiliation and, thereby, the relationship between the universities and the CVUs. But, first of all, what sort of ideal an ideal of knowledge transfer or an ideal of communication did the OECD set up in the review? The overall conclusion of the OECD review was that an explicit national strategy was needed for the Danish research and development system in education that was understood by all the relevant participants and stakeholders. The assessment of the OECD review was that there was a lot to build on but a need for systematic and coordinated action. The OECD review proposed, therefore, that new strategies and mechanisms be developed for interaction between researchers and practitioners. Specifically, the OECD review suggested forming genuine partnerships: a genuine partnership representing a balance between the real needs of teachers and the concerns and expertise of the research community. These sorts of dialogue-based partnerships were supposed to replace the conventional model of one way communication, that is, meetings or materials convey research findings to teachers and expect them to accept and implement the findings and their implications. (OECD 2004: 30) Thus, the ideal is a partnership between the universities and the CVUs and, in particular, between DPU and the CVUs. The OEDC review characterizes the partnership mode of thinking with two-way communication as the ideal. Specifically, the review advocates the establishment of local 5 National Review on Educational R&D: Examiners Report on Denmark, Directorate for Education, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) Governing Board, EDU/CERI/CD(2004)10. 7

8 fora consisting of teachers, researchers, and developers, which in a genuine partnership balances teachers needs with the expertise of the research community. The same type of partnership ideal is also found in the OECD review s proposal that a national forum be established in Denmark for education research with the participation of researchers, teachers, politicians, and private foundations a proposal that the two Danish ministries highlighted in a common press release upon the publication of the OECD review. Hence, Minister for Education Ulla Tørnæs stated: We need a stronger interplay with the research and development field. Therefore, the Minister for Science and I are establishing a national forum on research and development in education. Here, researchers will meet with teachers from various levels of education, politicians, and other interested parties. Another central proposal in the OECD review had to do with establishing a socalled clearinghouse for education research. This was to perform the function of a professional knowledge center that gathered together the most important research results and tried to ensure an effective transfer of research-based knowledge, so that practitioners had easier access to relevant research results. The work to create a National Forum for Education Research and a Clearinghouse began in the spring of Even though there were considerations in the OECD review about both types of organizations, it was not until subsequent political action that the two institutions were linked together. This linkage occurred in a background memo En åbenlys forbedring [An Obvious Improvement] (DPU et al., 2006), prepared by DPU, the Danish Ministry of Science, and the Danish Ministry of Education, on the establishment of a Forum for Education Research and a Clearinghouse at DPU. The result was that the Clearinghouse for Education Research was established at the Danish University of Education at the end of 2006, while a national forum for education research approved by the two ministries has not gone anywhere not even now. However, at the same time, the debate on this memo between the scientific system represented by DPU and the education system by the CVU Rectors Conference showed that the disagreements about the collaboration were also intact in the 2 nd period. The CVUs rejected the Clearinghouse construction, since it did not live up to the ideal of equality but rather in the view of the CVUs cemented a hierarchical conception of research affiliation in which the researchers were producers of knowledge and the CVUs as educational institutions were knowledge receivers and disseminators. As an alternative, therefore, the CVUs suggested that the concept of research affiliation be replaced by a duty of knowledge-sharing between universities and CVUs with a mode-2 paradigm that emphasized that knowledge is developed by research and practice in common. The background memo, En åbenlys forbedring, was followed up in December 2006 by DPU s conceptual memo on a Danish Clearinghouse for Education Research. In this memo, the separation of researchers and practitioners is underlined: That is, only education researchers participate in the review work, while educational practitioners are implicated in the communication and product strategy. 8

9 After this first period in the history of research affiliation, it was clear that the CVUs were not to engage in research. The second period shows that the CVUs made a virtue of this decision in the sense that they attempted to replace the concept of research affiliation with the concept of knowledge sharing, which subscribes to the idea of equal communication between different interested parties. Between rupture and collaboration The third period from March 2007 until today was, in the first instance, characterized by the fact that the collaboration between the universities and the CVUs was attempted to be broken of by both parties in turn. In the second instance, from the beginning of 2008, the connection was re-established in that political requirements for the collaboration between education research and university colleges were set. This helped create the conditions for the appearance in 2010 for the first time since the year 2000 of a common initiative for a larger consortium collaboration between the universities in this case, DPU, Aarhus University, and university colleges in the form of a proposal for a comprehensive national investment in continuing and higher education for Danish teachers. But, first, to accounts of the ruptures: the CVUs were the first to critique research affiliation that is, the rationale up to that point for the connection with the universities. This happened when the Danish government along with the Danish People s Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Social Liberal Party entered into an agreement to form 8 new cross-disciplinary and regional university colleges as replacements for the Centers for Higher Education. The agreement went into effect on 1 January 2008, when the Act on University Colleges for Higher Education became effective. The rupture occurred in that university colleges, according to the new legislation, were no longer obligated to be affiliated with research. This actually came as no big surprise. As early as March 2007 at the same time the bill proposing the University Colleges Act was sent to hearings, the Council for Medium-Length Higher Education (the MVU Council) recommended that the concept of research affiliation be dropped and replaced by a new tripartite concept of knowledge that includes practical knowledge, development knowledge, and research knowledge. The central goal for the MVU Council was to replace the hierarchical structure of knowledge (with research knowledge uppermost in the hierarchy) with a system in which the three various forms of knowledge took part in a constructive interplay. Instead, the key words for the university colleges became interplay and, particularly, collaboration. In the University Colleges Act, the obligation to have a research affiliation was thus eliminated in favor of collaboration and the idea of bringing in the most recent knowledge from research institutions. DPU reacted to this in a hearing statement 9

10 on the University Colleges Act by criticizing the removal of the research affiliation obligation in favor of collaboration. It was criticized because it was thought to weaken the obligation of future university colleges to collaborate with universities. The second rupture came from Aarhus University. In August 2007, Aarhus University in conjunction with the merger with the Danish University of Education as of 1 June 2007 announced an initiative to offer a 5-year academic teacher education consisting of a 3-year bachelor s degree and a 2-year graduate program. That is, a research-based teacher education that aims at a research-based professional practice presumes active research environments. (Aarhus University 2007) This produced a sharp reaction from the CVU Rectors Conference at that time. The reaction came in the form of a press release on 9 August 2010, which stated: Aarhus University s heralded application for a teacher education program as of the next academic year is poorly timed and an expression of a denigration of other forms of higher education than that of the universities. Nevertheless, on 27 September 2009, Aarhus University submitted an application to approve a three-year teacher bachelor s degree, starting in September The education was granted accreditation by the Danish Accreditation Council, but at the same time the Accreditation Council asked the Danish Minister for Science Helge Sander to decide the extent to which the education could be approved from a socio-economic point of view. This occurred with reference to 10.3 of the Accreditation Act. Consequently, on 28 February 2008, the Danish Minister for Science Helge Sander announced that the Danish government, for its part, had decided that there should be an array of supplemental teacher educations, including researchbased teacher educations, from On the other hand, there was a need to consider the socio-economic consequences more before a supplemental teacher education can be approved. As a result, Aarhus University was not allowed to offer a teacher education as of the summer of Instead, a working group was appointed consisting of representatives from the Danish Ministry of Science, the Danish Ministry of Education, and the Danish Finance Ministry, which was supposed to define the overall framework for the development of supplemental teacher educations. In August 2008, this working group produced a report entitled The Overall Framework for the Development of Supplemental Teacher Education. This report stated that a supplemental teacher education generally presumes that it is not assessed as inexpedient from a socio-economic point of view but, in addition, that an obligatory collaborative agreement between a university college and a university was a central premise for the approval of the Accreditation Council, since such a collaborative agreement would make sure there were no inexpedient socioeconomic consequences. Thus, in principle, the Danish government through Minister for Science Helge Sander forced the parties the universities and the university colleges to collaborate as a precondition for offering 10

11 supplemental teacher educations. Another debate between the Danish university colleges and the universities, however, demonstrated the difficulties of establishing a collaboration and the continued risk of breaking the connection between the research system and the education system. The debate arose in an extension of the fact that the university colleges in 2009 launched the idea of offering master s level educations as a follow-up to the bachelor s level education with a background in profession-based knowledge; that is, knowledge achieved by doing applied research as the foundational knowledge for professional education. A collaboration with the universities in this context was to be used to develop and build the professional foundation for the master s level education especially the theoretical part, so the foundation for the education, its relevance and quality, was developed. (Professionshøjskolernes rektorkollegium 2009: 8) The university colleges idea of offering a master s level education produced a critical reaction from Universities Denmark (the Rectors Conference of Danish Universities), which sowed doubt about the existence of a special form of research and wanted to warn against the dilution of the concept of research. (Danske Universiteter 2010) Furthermore, Universities Denmark asked whether the establishment of a new, competing education system without the quality assurance mechanisms of the universities was the best foundation for the bachelor s degree program and society and raised questions about whether research-based knowledge is always necessary for continuing and higher education within all professional areas of the bachelor s degree, or whether research-informed input in collaboration with the universities wouldn t be sufficient? (Danske Universiteter 2010: 2) The reaction of Universities Denmark was, thus, that the Danish universities must raise the quality of professional educations through collaboration with the universities not by establishing parallel and competing systems. The response of the university colleges to the position paper of Universities Denmark was that they did not just want a collaboration but an expanded collaboration and the starting point for this collaboration was that the university colleges also offered a master s level degree, since they considered Universities Denmark s desire to maintain a monopoly on the master s level neither legitimate nor well-founded. Among other things, the university colleges claimed with reference to the OECD review from 2004 that Danish universities have not been capable of meeting the challenge of creating contact between those who research in the field of education and those who practice in the field of education. (Professionshøjskolerne 2010: 1) Parallel to these conflicts, DPU, Aarhus University and 3 university colleges worked to create a consortium that, in June 2010, put forth a proposal, 4 Answers to 10 Challenges, to provide short-term and long-term solutions to raise the quality and competence of educational professions teachers, pedagogues, and managers in the Danish secondary school. And they wrote that they as partners are obligated to contribute in a coordinated, systematic, and directed way to raising professional quality levels. And they further wrote that their collaboration is a 11

12 central presupposition, but it is a national task to raise the quality of the Danish secondary school. In order to address these challenges, a true partnership is required between the politicians at Christiansborg, civil servants at the Ministries of Education and Finance, the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark, Danish School Managers, the Danish Union of Teachers, the Danish National Federation of Early Childhood Teachers and Youth Educators, the National Association of Parents and School Boards, the Confederation of Danish Industries, etc. The decisive question for all parties was: Is there, generally speaking, the political will, the managerial resolution and perseverance, to create a better secondary school for children and young people as we approach the year 2020? Simply the fact that this question was raised indicates an uncertainty in relation to the political will but that the question was raised by DPU, Aarhus University and 3 university colleges together is what one would consider in a Danish context an almost unique historic event, when one assesses the whole period from the year 2000 forward. Summary I First of all, the analysis of the relationship between Danish universities, including at first the Danish University of Education and, later, DPU, Aarhus University, on one hand, and the Danish Centers for Higher Education ( )/Danish university colleges (2008-), on the other hand, illustrate that, during the period from 2000 until today, great attention is paid to the attempt to mobilize knowledge by creating a stronger connection between education research and the education system s need for answers to problems with respect to educational practice. Second, the last decade s debates show that there is still conflict about the ideals from which the connection is best established. The conflict takes place between the universities, which primarily talk about transfer of knowledge from research to education, and the CVUs/university colleges, which talk to a higher degree about partnerships based on equal dialogue. With this in mind, one may ask whether the idea of partnerships as recommended in the OECD review from 2004 is strong enough? Is one of the problems also with the OECD review of Danish R&D from 2004 that it may well point out the necessity of a better interplay between R&D but does not to a sufficient extent recommend or indicate what framework needs to exist within that interplay, who is to set it up and what it is to aim for? Is the OECD review in reality too much in league with a Danish tradition for collaboration and participation that is, a tradition in which one does not delineate in advance the limits or rank order but negotiates one s way to it? 12

13 Analysis II: From transfer of research-based knowledge to journalistic research communication In 2006, the report For the good of education in Denmark: Report from the committee on education research was published. Behind the report was a committee whose purpose was to set up models to strengthen education research and the interplay among research, education, and continuing and higher education. Its purpose also included relating to how education research is disseminated. In the light of Analysis I, however, it is worth noting that, in the report s section on the transfer of education research, the committee points out that stronger collaborative relationships between universities and university colleges will also help stimulate the transfer of research knowledge to medium-length higher educations, and reference is made to a section of the report that has to do with basic research affiliation or collaboration rationales that is, the rationales I dealt with in Analysis I. In relation to research affiliation in a narrower and more specific sense, the committee pointed out merit assessment as a fundamental problem for transfer of research-based knowledge in Denmark. That is, the problem is that researchers advance themselves by publishing for their peers, not by transfer of research-based knowledge to the public at large or to interested parties at other educational institutions. Therefore, the committee made the assessment that there is a general need for a focus on transfer of research-based knowledge and providing universities and researchers with an incentive to transfer research-based knowledge to the public at large. A need that includes research in education, pedagogy and didactics. Beyond the committee s indication of merit assessment as a fundamental problem, the committee also recommended: 1) that better websites be put together to communicate appropriately and purposefully to target groups of practitioners and interested parties; 2) that the Danish Clearinghouse for Education Research build a portal for education research that provides overall access to relevant information at various Danish universities and university colleges, and; 3) that prizes be instituted prizes for especially good transfer of research-based knowledgein education research and prizes for bringing new research into teaching in a particularly good and noteworthy way. Journalism makes us equal But what was the rationale from which the committee was working? The concept of knowledge transferf is used throughout the report but, by contrast, the committee refers in the report to the 13

14 focus the Danish Minister for Science Helge Sander put on transfer of research-based knowledge in the form of the establishment of the think tank Forståelse af forskning * Understanding of Research ] in This think tank published a second report with the title Forsk og fortæl [Research and Relate] (Videnskabsministeriet 2004), in which the following could be read: At the think tank, we view it as our task to help improve the quality of transfer of research-based knowledge. In particular, there needs to be work with new forms of research communication and communication based on dialogue. Therefore, we also prefer to use the concept of research communication, which is a substitute for the more traditional concept of transfer of research-based knowledge, which may imply to too high a degree that more information will solve all problems. With the concept of research communication, we want to make it clear that good communication on research is two-way communication. (Forsk og fortæl 2004: 9) That good communication is two-way communication became idealized in the Danish context as equal dialogue. This appeared particularly in Analysis I, but if we look more closely at the consequence of this, we can say the following: The consequence has been to privilege modern journalism, including the preference for employing journalists or staff with journalistic ability to organize communication departments at Danish universities. The reason that equality and the employment of journalists is a good match goes together with the fact that journalists in their self-understanding try to eradicate any asymmetry and gaps in understanding between sender and receiver. In short, it is a journalistic core competence to translate the sender s knowledge, so it is understandable in another context without becoming poorer or distorted communication. One of the Danish journalism textbooks even discusses equal communication situations that have to do with professional transfer of knowledge in relation to professional communication (Jensen, 2001, chap. 2) Professional transfer of knowledgeis when researchers communicate with each other. Here, communication is symmetrical. Professional communication is when researchers communicate with the public at large. Here, the communication is asymmetrical; there is a gap in understanding that requires journalistic translation to build bridges between sender and receiver. Put differently, there is no doubt about the tendency namely, that, since 2003, employees of Danish universities and, for that matter, Danish university colleges have placed a journalistic perspective on their public relations. We have a development indicating that, to an increasing degree, we are dealing with organizations that do not as before simply come into contact with the mass media every so often but, to the contrary, with organizations that make a continually more active and professional effort to get the attention of the mass media by linking themselves to the journalistic premises therefor. 14

15 Does journalism make us more informed about research? But what effect do the efforts of universities and university colleges have for the representations of their research and knowledge production in the mass media in relation to influencing mobilizing education policies or helping research and knowledge inform the practice of a Danish school teacher? Does the participation of researchers in the mass media mean that research is being used to a higher degree by politicians and, for example, teachers in their practice? Put differently: does the journalistic communicationof research mean that Danish politicians use research as the basis for their decisions more easily and frequently? Does it correspondingly mean that a teacher in a Danish secondary school brings research-based knowledge more easily and frequently into his/her teaching in a particularly good and noteworthy way? Not much knowledge exists on this, because no studies have been undertaken on the extent to which and how journalistic transfer of research might promote the use of this knowledge by politicians and in educational practice. But if we begin with what we know something about in a Danish context, it is the case that Danish researchers today appear far more often in the mass media than before. A Danish study of researcher participation in three daily newspapers from shows that there has been a growth in participation: In 1961, readers could bump into a single researcher in each paper, while in 2001 they could encounter five researchers per newspaper. If one corrects for the fact that newspapers have grown larger, we are talking about a tripling of the number. (Albæk et al. 2004) Furthermore, we know that Danish researchers appear most often as experts who comment on matters that do not have a direct source in their own research and, therefore, is not in a strict and narrow sense transfer of research-based knowledge. In 1961 and 1971, commentaries to their own or others research constituted two-thirds of the comments of all researchers in the three dailies, but from 1981 a displacement occurs away from research transfer of toward the press using researchers to comment on knowledge created elsewhere and on political decisions and other events. (Albæk et al. 2004) Finally, there is also documentation for the fact that education researchers are among the most cited university researchers in the Danish mass media. For example, the (then) Danish University of Education was cited the most in 2006, measured per academic staff member compared with other universities. Once that is said, there is still uncertainty about the general effect of this; that is, how the appearance of researchers in the mass-mediated public realm helps inform political decisions or a particular educational practice through research. 15

16 Which media can researchers use to inform the public about their research? One of the reasons that research communication does not always lead to a sufficiently informed public has to do with the presumption with which it works: namely, the very encounter between journalists and researchers. One might otherwise believe that this encounter was unproblematic in the form of a simple and frictionless division of labor between research and journalism: Research produces knowledge, journalism disseminates it. But, in practice, dashed expectations can be seen in both researchers and journalists. Researchers are disappointed by journalists, because as researchers they work from scientific conceptions of what good journalism is. Journalists are disappointed when they work from journalistic conceptions of what good research is. And these disappointments may at times lead to anger among both researchers and journalists. Researchers express anger that journalists simplify and distort what the research demonstrates. Journalists, in turn, are angry that researchers are not accessible, quick or comprehensible enough to provide expert commentary. The explanation for these disappointments is that, even though both research and journalism tout objectivity and newsworthiness, they mean very different things by them upon closer inspection. Objectivity in relation to science is an epistemological problem that has to do with the possibility for non-value-laden knowledge; while, in journalism, it has to do with hearing both sides in a case in order to ensure fairness in a situation. In relation to newsworthiness, journalism is fundamentally absorbed by the fact that something is different today in relation to yesterday; while science is only interested in new knowledge if it can be considered true. In short, the time dimension is essential in news journalism, while the subject matter dimension weighs heaviest in science. The publication of the results of the 2003 PISA study in Denmark on Monday, 6 December 2004, illustrates this difference. Before the PISA report was published, Ritzau wrote an article based on a ranking from the German weekly periodical Der Spiegel. It appeared from the article that, according to the PISA study, Danish students did more poorly than in the previous study three years earlier. This interpretation was repeated on TV news programs on the two major Danish channels DR1 and TV2. The news, which received no less than 40 minutes of broadcast time, correctly summarized Der Spiegel, but Der Spiegel s information was untrue. According to the PISA report, Danish students were not doing more poorly than before they had not moved from where they were in the last report. The chairman of the Danish PISA consortium Prof. Niels Egelund of DPU and the head of the study s mathematics section Lena Lindenskov called attention to this in a press release with the headline: Interpretation of PISA Numbers Fails. This disavowal was carried by Ritzau and by the periodical Folkeskolen, but it received far less media and political attention than the first, incorrect report. In short, the media used the PISA study for a good, new story from a journalistic point of view Denmark was not doing well where the interest in getting the story first counted most. Can Danish researchers in this case, education researchers simply stop having anything to do with the mass media? This does not seem to be a possibility, and it is intertwined with many 16

17 things. First of all, Danish university researchers are obligated to participate in the public debate according to the Danish University Act. Second, the universities have accommodated themselves to participate in the public debate by establishing communication departments. And, third, it seems to be generally accepted that the appearance of researchers in the mass media helps secure the legitimacy and acceptance of universities. On the other hand, what Danish researchers can do is to be wary of taking their bearings too much from journalistic criteria. The credibility of research communication today has to do with how a scientific system can show good will to the journalistic system without giving itself up as a system. For the universities, this has to do with handling a paradox between the truth value of a scientific result and its journalistic information value and the handling of this has to do, among other things, with which aspects of the mass media researchers participate in and on what conditions. (Holm 2006) The advice of researchers does not determine politics or educational practice But if one assumes that the encounter between researchers and journalists is going well with credible research communication as a consequence, to what extent does the use of journalistic methods help politicians base their political decisions on research knowledge; or to what extent does it help the educational professions base their practice on research knowledge? Do journalistic practices make any positive difference in these respects? I can only provide a general answer to this, since there is no Danish research to illuminate this question. The mass media keep society alert, the German systems theorist Niklas Luhmann has pointed out to us. (Luhmann 2002) In principle, this means that the mass media s communication of education research keeps politicians and professions alert. But there is some distance from there to making and wanting to make direct use of research results. For example, both Danish and international evaluation research has shown that there is no certainty that either the political system or a professions system makes use of the otherwise applicable social science knowledge the researchers acquire. The Danish professor Erik Albæk, for example, has shown in his book Fra sandhed til information. Evalueringsforskning i USA før og nu [From Truth to Information: Evaluation Research in the United States Before and Now] from 1988 that, in American politics in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a strong faith that social science research on a positivistic and behavioristic foundation could make politics rational. This did not happen, since the instrumental engineering model proved not to work. The model rested on faith in a rational sequence and division of labor that told us the following: First, the politician defines a social problem. Then, the social engineer goes to work researching with a practical solution in mind. When he provides the solutions, politicians and professionals are supposed to select and implement the best of them. The model was taken from the natural sciences, where through scientific insight man was able to go to the moon, to transplant hearts, livers and kidneys from one person to another, to develop 17