By August Palving Blauner & Prisca Laura Ohler, Mission Unit

Aalborg University is kick-starting its mission programme to become an active change agent in society, economy, policy, and civil society. With the newly established Mission Unit (Missionssekretariatet) the university is underway to build new capacities to lead partnerships for impact. The Mission Unit started its work on the 1st of September 2023 by welcoming Niels Bech Lukassen, who is the new Head of Missions and Mission Officer of the Well-Being of Children & Youth Mission. The new unit will facilitate sustainable cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral partnerships to co-create mission projects for societal change.

With its strategy to become a mission-oriented university, AAU faces new opportunities but also new uncertainties: What does it mean for a university to lead missions? How do top-down topics fit with bottom-up thinking? And what role do universities play in this mission-oriented framework?

These questions were asked Prof. David Budtz Pedersen from the Department of Communication and Psychology. Together, with Prof. Jakob Stoustrup, he has been one of the advisers behind the implementation of the new AAU strategy.

Mission-oriented approach

In an interview with the ESUS Newsletter, Professor Pedersen states that missions are important tools to create an environment for more solution-oriented and hands-on research and innovation. Ideally, the mission framework at AAU should facilitate and enable processes to create actionable solutions for pressing challenges by proactively engaging with experts and affected citizens. For example, missions will have to draw upon a wide range of expertise from industry and the public sector to develop feasible solutions with clear impact targets.

For the success of mission projects collaboration with both local companies and policymakers as well as an understanding of the regulatory environment is paramount. This means that missions will become increasingly challenging for universities because they are based on broad partnerships.

Characterization of a mission

In brief, missions are partnerships defined by input from a wide range of problem-owners and problem-solvers. By making use of each partner's expertise and contributions, the mission should ideally unfold its impact on society and the environment.

Prof. Pedersen points out that:

“Within any mission project, you need to create sufficient space for experimentation, for unorthodox thinking, and for engaging diverse stakeholders and disciplines. If we could just take down research and innovation from the shelves and apply it without new thinking and innovation, we wouldn’t need missions.”

Top-down & bottom-up dichotomy

Research scientists and academic staff need to be deeply involved in the scoping and implementation of missions and harvest the benefits of bottom-up input and engagement. At the same missions call for leadership and direction, drawing upon top-down decisions and funding allocation. Prof. Pedersen believes missions should focus on solutions and impacts defined by broad consultation and involvement of stakeholders. Yet, at the same time executive decisions need to be taken. Funding agencies need to come on board and the senior management needs to put its power and influence behind the missions to make them successful. As such, missions can be defined as a mix of bottom-up and top-down approaches.

The role of universities

According to Prof. Pedersen, universities need to play a more ambitious role as drivers of change. For this to happen, different layers of the organization need to work together. Both the university management, the Board of Governors, the academic staff, the strategic and administrative staff, and partners across society and industry. This will create partnerships and solutions that no individual team, organization, or discipline can produce.

“Universities cannot operate in silos. Innovation is the product of collaborative efforts. It is not just the discovery of new phenomena, nor the development of a new product or manufacturing technique, nor the creation of a new solution. Rather, the innovation process is all these things acting together in an integrated way toward a common goal.”

AAU is widely known for creating societal impact. However, with the mission approach to research and innovation, the university has to refine its identity – and take ownership and leadership of large-scale solutions.

“As a university, AAU is not able to define top-down policies or mobilize state and industry actors for large-scale moonshot projects. We will not put a person on the Moon or solve the mystery of cancer alone. But we can contribute substantial knowledge and solutions within our space of influence. We have an important platform, and missions are an important tool to maximize the visibility and impact of research.”

 

Background:

David Budtz Pedersen is the director of the AAU Interdisciplinary Leadership Programme and is responsible for organizing a number of Mission Masterclasses across the university. In the beginning of 2024, he is co-authoring a new ‘Mission Guidebook’ initiated by the Strategic Council for Research and Innovation at AAU.