DTU wants to create technology for people. Therefore, considerations about how a new technology can affect people - the social impact - must be included in DTU's research designs right from the idea phase.
Provost Christine Nellemann has initiated a strategically prioritized effort to improve the quality and impact of research in society. Specifically, DTU's researchers are now offered help, guidance, and sparring to consider aspects of human diversity and social impact from the start of their research designs and processes.
DTU wants to create technology for people.
“Working with diversity, equality and inclusion in all parts of the research process is a way to ensure impact and improve research quality,” says Christine Nellemann and continues:
“At DTU, impact and excellence go hand in hand. Our research should make a positive difference for as many as possible. If we are to develop technologies for the many, the impact must be considered from the start and ensure that as many people as possible and thus society at large —regardless of gender, age, disability, nationality, culture, etc.— benefit from DTU's technologies and innovations.”
Responsible technology for society
Most people know of examples where it would have been beneficial to consider human diversity in research designs from the start. Seat belts tested on an average Caucasian man which are not quite as safe for people with other body types. The introduction of NemID, which has resulted in groups of citizens such as the elderly finding it difficult to communicate with public authorities.
“If we don't consider how the research, we conduct, will affect humans in one way or another, we risk creating less good results — solutions that reproduce or create inequality in society or, at worst, inadvertently do more harm than good,” says Christine Nellemann.
“At DTU, we ensure that our technologies and innovations strengthen society and honour fundamental European values such as human rights, equality and democracy. That's why it's important that we also work purposefully with social sustainability.”
Part of the researchers' core task
The initiative is anchored in the Department of Research, Consultancy and Innovation and is led by Sif Lehman Jensen, who has a PhD in international relations and gender studies. From her work in the Danish Armed Forces she has solid experience in developing and targeting educational material and concrete tools in the work with diversity, equal treatment and inclusion. Sif Lehman Jensen will help DTU's researchers apply relevant scientific methods to include considerations of diversity and societal impact from idea to publication in each research project.
Working with diversity, equality and inclusion in research is part of the researchers' core task: to create innovation that makes a positive difference for people and society, says Sif Lehman Jensen:
“My job is to work with the researchers and —based on the individual project— to think about the effect the research or technology will have when it is used in society. Are there blind spots, inequality-creating barriers or bias in the project's method development, in the way data is collected and processed, in the test design? It is a scientifically based way to meet society's increasing demands for research quality and to explain how the project will have the greatest possible breadth and reach in society, for example, in relation to research grants.”
The project will initially run for two years, during which time Sif Lehman Jensen will work with DTU's researchers and departments to develop a concept for integrating diversity parameters into research. To ensure that the effort is anchored in the departments' needs, Sif is currently visiting DTU's departments to discuss what it means for researchers to work with diversity in research and how to go about it.
