From Research to Education

Dear colleagues,

One of the defining strengths of a university is that teaching and research live side by side. With that we have the basis for exposing our students to the newest knowledge and the strong competences we possess. Ensuring that our students actually benefit fully from this does, however, require more than good intentions. It requires that we continuously connect our educational needs with the expertise of our academic staff and that the educational opportunities emerging from new research are captured.

At TEK we have many educational programmes, many courses, and many researchers with highly diverse and specialised competences that continually evolve. This richness is one of our greatest assets. It is also what makes the task of matching competences with teaching needs and opportunities far from trivial.

No individual academic can reasonably be expected to know all educational needs across the faculty. Conversely, our Educational Programme Leaders cannot be expected to know the detailed competences of every research group. If every academic were to consider every educational opportunity, and every educational leader every academic, the task would be overwhelming and inefficient. Good matching does not emerge from everyone looking everywhere.

What we therefore need is something resembling a broker-supported marketplace where needs and competences meet and opportunities are pursued. A place where educational needs are visible, competences are known, and connections are actively facilitated rather than left to chance. Here our Educational Programme Leaders and Heads of Units play important roles. The former understand our educational needs, the latter know staff and their competences. Heads of Departments complement with the wider overview and responsibility to help connect and ensure that the brokering works. All academic staff should avail themselves of this brokering and proactively seek to bring their academic strengths into our educations.

When new opportunities arise from research developments or new hires, the Head of Unit can help connect colleagues with leaders of educational programmes where those competences may be valuable. If the relevant educational programme is not immediately obvious, the Head of Unit may involve a Head of Department to help identify where such a connection should be explored.

This brokering role becomes particularly important when new opportunities arise that were not previously recognised as educational needs.

A recent example illustrates the point nicely. Researchers in our Unit for AI and Data Science are working on the application of artificial intelligence to modelling and analysing experiments in physics. Until recently, they had not contributed to teaching in physics. By fortunate coincidence a connection was made between the group and the leader of the Physics Programme. As a result, we will now introduce a course on AI in Physics.

This is exactly the kind of development we should welcome: new research opening new educational opportunities. But in this case the connection happened by fortunate coincidence. As a rule, we should not rely on luck for such connections.

Another challenge arises from how our organisation naturally works. Educational Programme Leaders carry this responsibility alongside their roles as researchers and academics. The latter associate them with a particular unit. Consequently, they will generally know colleagues in their own unit better than colleagues across the rest of the faculty.

This creates an understandable bias. When a teaching need arises in, say, the Mechanical Engineering Programme, it is often easiest to turn first to colleagues in the Mechanical Engineering Unit. Yet relevant competences may exist elsewhere. Researchers in Bioinspired Robotics may have expertise highly relevant for mechanical engineering students. Conversely, competences in HVAC in the Mechanical Engineering Unit may be highly relevant for parts of our Civil Engineering education.

Our ambition is clear: When we match teaching needs with academic competences, expertise — not organisational proximity — must guide the choice. Improving this will not rely on a short-term push. Rather, it is about cultivating awareness of and responsibility for what we want to achieve.

All of us — academics, Educational Programme Leaders, Heads of Units and Heads of Departments — have a role in ensuring that the full breadth of competences within our faculty is brought optimally into play in our teaching. Together we want to make the flow from research to education deliberate rather than a matter of coincidence or proximity.

If we succeed, the reward will be significant: stronger educational programmes, richer learning experiences for our students, and teaching that truly reflects the full strength and diversity of our research.

All the best,

Henrik Bindslev