lesson 5 Cooperating with strategic partners will increase opportunities to make an impact

lesson 5

Cooperating with strategic partners will increase opportunities to make an impact

Impact is less likely to come from solo efforts by researchers or one-way streets running from research to practice than from purposeful cocreation and partnerships. One good example of the sort of partnerships that facilitate impact is the study by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) Migratie en classificatie: Naar een meervoudig migratie-idioom [Migration and Classification: Towards a Multiple Migration Idiom] (2016), which argued that the Dutch term for migrants and their children, allochtoon, was outdated and should be abandoned, along with the distinction between ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ migrants. The WRR undertook this study in consultation with the national statistical office, Statistics Netherlands. Having such a powerful ally makes it easier to change the idiom. Researchers in the SSH are very good at collaborating with one another, but we also have much to gain by cooperating with longstanding networks and impact hubs within and between organisations. Input from the field – including citizen science initiatives – can help researchers to formulate better questions from a broader perspective. Cooperation with primary, secondary and vocational education has increased the impact of linguistics researchers and literary scholars. One example is litlab.nl, a virtual lab where teachers and students can work on literary experiments and assignments.6 Another example is the database ter-info.nl, a living lab in which students and researchers collaborate with teachers to provide teaching materials, workshops and training courses on certain disruptive moments (e.g. terrorist attacks) that schools are hesitant to address.7 Yet another example is the close cooperation between certain mental health institutions and academic researchers. Such ‘labs’ offers us a good model for creating a context in which exchange and interaction can take place over a longer period of time.

6 See LitLab.nl . 7 See Ter-info.nl ‘The ban on visitors had a serious negative impact on the wellbeing of nursing home residents. This is one of the key findings of our research into the impact of the prohibition on visits and the extended Covid-19 restrictions, carried out by AWOL (Maastricht) and UKON (Nijmegen). The study made use of robust networks and was set up together with the elderly and their families, professionals and administrators. That made it possible to start it up and carry it out so quickly. No more blanket bans on visitors – that is the outcome of our research. And that applies internationally, too, because our journal article won a prize for greatest societal impact in the field, sending out the message: nursing homes should stay open.’

Hilde Verbeek, professor of Nursing, Maastricht University

7 Zie Litlab.nl 8 Zie Ter-info.nl