Call for Applications 2024/25
We are excited to announce that the call for applications for fellowships at c:o/re in 2024/25 is now open.
The Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) is offering ten fellowships to junior and senior researchers from the humanities, social sciences or STS as well as from natural, life and technical sciences for the academic year 2024/25.
The fellowships can start between June and October 2024.
You can find all information about the current call for applications on this webpage.
Applications must be submitted via our online application platform. The deadline for applications is December 31, 2023.
If you have questions regarding the application process, please have a look at the FAQs on our website or write us an email at info@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
c:o/re meets “Leonardo”
We are excited that the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of research (c:o/re) is participating in the “Leonardo” project at RWTH Aachen University this winter semester.
Together with some of our fellows, c:o/re is offering the course “Engineering Life. Imaginaries of Lifelikeness”, which will explore the topic of “Lifelikeness” from different disciplinary perspectives, such as the life and technical sciences, the humanities, art history and science journalism.
The “Leonardo” lectures are open to all RWTH students, regardless of which discipline they study and therefore share the same goal as c:o/re in promoting lecturers and students to use their subject-specific knowledge in a broader context to investigate the challenges within society and science.
You can read more about the “Leonardo” project on their website.
Lifelikeness… from scratch: Director Gabriele Gramelsberger opens the new c:o/re lecture series
On October 25th, Professor Gabriele Gramelsberger, one of the two c:o/re directors, gave the first talk of the 2023/2024 c:o/re lecture series, which focuses on the slippery but important notion of lifelikeness. The title of her talk, Life from scratch announces an interesting lecture series bringing together arguments from the life sciences to philosophy and all the way to engineering and computational science, where we can but expect the best practice of academic traditions: controversy, that unavoidable result of free and critical thinking.
This semester’s c:o/re lecture series is also part of the Projekt “Leonardo”: Interdisciplinary Teaching for Creative Minds . This project offers interdisciplinary courses on social challenges broadly, offering RWTH Aachen University students from many disciplines the possibility to learn about the eclectic and interdisciplinary work of researchers from various departments.
In this way, c:o/re contributes to the teaching offer of and inter-departmental dialogue at RWTH Aachen University. Debating lifelikeness, as a topic emerging at the interface of the humanities and social sciences, natural sciences and engineering, is one of the contributions that c:o/re brings to foster dialogue across faculties and bring together local scholars and its research fellows.
In this first talk of the series, Professor Gramelsberger inspired a lively discussion among c:o/re researchers and colleagues and students from many departments across RWTH Aachen University. She offered a broadly informative and encompassing overview of synthetic biology, with a focus on the enduring human fascination to solve the puzzle of life, such as pursued currently in astrobiology.
First, Professor Gramelsberger took the audience on a journey through the history of biology, particularly as seen from the contemporary vantage point of ReGenesis. The talk proceeded from early efforts to obtain (a)biogenesis in laboratories to contemporary experiments and efforts, such as revolving around the concept of the domain Synthetica.
Introducing the main guiding concepts, such as abiogenesis, Professor Gramelsberger explained that the ideal to create life is, probably, as old as humanity. She pointed to the enduring cultural fascination with creating life, as displayed in novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), or in Jewish mythical folklore of the Golem, the animated mythical creature created from mud that is said to have roamed 16th-century Prague. Cultural imaginaries of humans creating new life have taken inspiration, of course, from state-of-the-art scientific undertakings. For example, Mary Shelley likely took inspiration from Luigi Galvani’s experiments in the 1780s. Much later, in 1952, the type of thinking falling under the label electric spark theory was put to the test in the Miller-Urey experiment (see Miller 1953), with impressive results. Researchers observed the formation of amino acids by applying electricity to water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2), a setting meant to simulate the conditions, as thought at the time, of the prebiotic Earth atmosphere.
Having presented these ideas to the students, Professor Gramelsberger set the stage for an informative overview of the intellectual history covering the works of Jacques Loeb (1852-1924), Alfonso Herrera (1868-1942) and Stéphane Leduc (1853-1939).
An interesting realization that this history reveals is that the biological problem of life keeps slipping. Every time when biological science finds the solution to what it construed as the question of life, it reveals that the question of life was misplaced. For example, merely creating an organic molecule from inorganic matter or protoplasm from mineral substances is not creating life. As spectacular as this achievement may be, the most important insight it provides is that merely organic molecules or DNA is not life, as we experience and recognize it. Hence, biology can be said to reveal what life is in a positive heuristics of increasingly understanding what life is not.
The talk then proceeded to present more recent molecular biology, as enabled by the genetic paradigm, and exemplified in the work of figures like Craig Venter or Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer. Professor Gramelsberger discussed recent efforts in the pursuit of De-novo organisms in an engaging manner, making the main notion here comprehensible for both fellow academics and postgraduate students. She offered an overview of the main types of De-novo approaches, namely Minimal genome, Biobrick (engineering) and Computer-aided design (CAD). This opened the stage for reflecting on cutting-edge and speculative considerations of the domain of Synthetica, as a new unit in the vocabulary of biological taxonomy. The talk raised important questions about the future of life, bio-hacking and genetic literacy, as one branch of new literacies. Here, Professor Gramelsberger noted the pioneering scholarship, such as George Church’s ReGenesis (2012), Amy Web & Andrew Hessel’s The genesis machine (2022) and Jamie Metzl’s Hacking Darwin (2019).
Overall, the talk fostered an interdisciplinary dialogue, also stiring the interest of students by reflecting philosophically on the many questions accumulated and meliorated through the history of (synthetic) biology. For example, the the role of the concept of oscillators was noted, across disciplines, in ushering a process instead of object ontology. Questions and discussions covered the conceptualisation of genetic engineering and synthetic biology, mechanical reductionism and vitalism, industrial and economic motivations and, of course, a wide array of ethical considerations.
With this intriguing introduction, we look forward to the next talks in the c:o/re Lifelikeness series, which also addresses students through Projekt Leonardo.
References
Church, George. 2012. ReGenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Basic Books.
ETC group. 2007. Extreme genetic engineering: An introduction to synthetic biology. ETC group.
Metzl, Jamie. 2019. Hacking Darwin: Genetic engineering and the future of humanity. Sourcebooks, Inc..
Miller, Stanley L. 1953. Production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions, Science 117 (3046): 528-529.
Webb, Amy, Hessel, Andrew. 2022. The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology. Hachette.
Reflecting back on the International Semiotic Summer School in Prague: Visual Metaphors. An unprecedented event in a history of semiotics in the Czech Republic
TYLER JAMES BENNETT
The International Semiotic Summer School in Prague (ISSSIP 2023) was an unprecedented event, having taken place on July 23rd – 28th, 2023. It was organized by the International Semiotics Institute (based at Palacký University Olomouc), in partnership with c:o/re, the University of Bologna, University of Sofia St. Kliment Ohridski, The Erasmus School of Philosophy in Rotterdam, Palacký University in Olomouc, and Charles University in Prague. It was hosted at the Department of Electronic Culture and Semiotics at Charles University. It gathered 80 students from several universities, who listened to lectures by more than ten leading academics, in several branches of semiotics, and had the chance to network and share their ongoing research. We express our gratitude to have collaborated with RWTH Aachen University for this event.
Tyler James Bennett
Tyler James Bennett is Assistant Professor at Palacký University Olomouc and the director of the International Semiotics Institute. His research interests include deconstruction, psychoanalysis and biosemiotics.
We say that it was unprecedented from the insider perspective of being principal organizers of the event, as well as having been deeply implicated in the European semiotics conference circuit for more than a decade – because of the diligence of the team, the beneficence of the environs, the generosity of the hosts as well as the funding institutions, we think we saw something pretty special. At the bottom of this post, reflections by RWTH Aachen students confirm the unique experience that the summer school offered.
The Czech semiotic summer schools have a long if still somewhat unwritten history. The same can be said about the even longer history of the Czech schools (now in plural) of semiotics, in general. ISSSIP 2023 was first proposed at the 2022 Czech Semiotic Summer School held in Broumov, at the Benedictine Monastery. It consisted mostly of Martin Švantner, Ondřej Váša, Tyler James Bennett, Ľudmila Lacková and philosophy and semiotics students from Charles University. It was a low-key event with no more than 20 participants, but the students showed excitement and remarkable competence. Alena Ivanová, Aneta Kouvařiková and Vojtěch Volách were all there, the three of whom would later be instrumental members of the local organzing ground team the following summer. At the outdoor dinner table there, in July, it was agreed that we would hold it in Prague, and perhaps we could make it a more international event this time. As such, we started the dialog with RWTH Aachen, among other universities that became organizing partners.
We decided not to call it the ‘Czech’ Semiotic Summer School. All of us in the organizing committee share some commitment to non-identification with the nation-state; as a source for themes and conceptual unity it is all too easy to fall back on the classics. We resolved to call this event the ‘International’ Semiotic Summer School in Prague, which was appealing to some of us because of how it highlights the role of the International Semiotics Institute (ISI) in the organization of the school. We really only understood the wisdom of keeping ‘Czech’ out of the title after the school was complete and we could reflect on the recurring points of discussion. The great names in Czech semiotics were of course spoken at our Summer School: Ivo Osolsobě, Jan Kořenský, and Roman Jakobson (although, as we know, Jakobson was Russian) – but the trending theoretical coordinates were far more diverse than this, unrestricted by historical or geographical limitations. Were it the ‘Czech Semiotic Summer School’ no doubt our guests would feel some obligation to pay obeisance to the local demi-gods, but in our case the pantheon is de-particularized (and this is reflected in the diversity of semiotic research cultures globally). Nevertheless, s ome new and very clear trend lines did also emerge from this meeting.
One of our keynote speakers, Professor Jordan Zlatev (Lund University), put it like this: if this Summer School is any indication, semiology (as a specific pathway of semiotic research, on the inspiration of Ferdinand de Saussure) is alive and well in the international semiotics scene. This comment even came before semiology had really seriously been broached at our event, when professor Miglena Nikolchina gave her keynote the following day, which bore the really excellent title: “F in Fire Stands for Fear: Image, Language, and Metaphor in a Kristevan Perspective”. Nikolchina works at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and we invited her specifically for her expertise in the semiotics of Julia Kristeva, and for her team of associates from Bulgaria who bring probably the most sophisticated understanding of the semiology of that time, which elevated the discussion considerably.
Securing the participation of students and colleagues from all of our partner universities was made possible entirely by the Blended Intensive Program (BIP), an Erasmus funding source from the European Union. For each institution sending students to our conference a separate agreement had to be negotiated with a different representative on their side. This involved countless emails and phone calls. We are all greatful to Ľudmila Lacková who, as Head of General Linguistics at Palacky University, managed all this coordination. Eventually, the event gathered an impressive number of enthusiastic students from many universities. Alin Olteanu’s role in bringing such great students from RWTH Aachen University, and for giving his own special workshop on cognitive semiotics, together with his colleague Aliki Apostolidou, as well as chairing more than one session, was decisive to the success of the school.
I believe that this semiotics event, focusing on visual metaphor, illustrated some of the topics that academics working in semiotics can collaborate on with science and technology scholars, such as the team and fellows of c:o/re. We listened to several remarkable talks on semiotic perspectives on technology, videogaming being a central focus in Miglena Nikolchina’s keynote address. I would like to highlight the presentation of the project Digital Writing, by Anežka Formánková and Kristína Harišová from Palacký University, under the supervision of Ľudmila Lackova. This project brings crucial insights into the history and cognitive aspects of writing systems, including the possible futures of writing systems, semiotic and linguistic analysis of emojis and internet memes.
The work of the Institute for Studies in Pragmatism (at Texas Tech), an important partner of this Summer School, has a specific interest for digital technology and artificial intelligence. Scholars from this Institute discussed such topics, unraveling particular insights that may come from semiotic perspectives. We would like to thank Professor Elize Bisanz, the Director of this Institute, not only for participating and delivering a brilliant keynote address, but also for making organizing the Peirce Young Scholar Awards at this Summer School, making available prizes, financial and not only, for the best three presentations by students. The best student presentation prize was awarded to Lenka Vojtíšková (Charles University) and the third best presentation prize was awarded to Rahul Murdeshwar (University of Tartu). The second-best student presentation was awarded to the RWTH Aachen student Chiara Schumann, for her paper on Metaphors animals live by, which discussed metaphorical conceptualizations in a species of octopi. This work on animal cognition and meaning-making is relevant for one of the main interests at c:o/re, namely lifelikeness. We see here a pathway for biosemiotics and cognitive semiotics to participate to the current cutting-edge debates in science and technology studies. Currently, Chiara is writing a BA thesis on this topic, coordinated by Dr. Alin Olteanu and Prof. Irene Mittelberg.
While I pointed out some specific papers we listened to at the Summer School, I cannot offer a compelling sample of the rich academic debates we had throughout the week. The full program of the Summer School is available here.
We are grateful to Castle Residence Praha, a fabulous hotel located directly next to the venue (Faculty of Humanities), hosted two of our big social events. The nights at Castle Residence will always be remembered. We are also grateful to Charles University for making available student dormitories at a very convenient price for the event.
What was most remarkable was that this event also had a kind of lawless, anarchic vibe – in the best sense. Because it was specifically Martin Švantner and Ondřej Váša (vice-dean of the Faculty of Humanities) who were the Charles University academic staff responsible onsite, everything proceeded naturally, and for once it did not feel like there were any hostile bureaucrats trying to dictate terms or limit what we could do. Above all, we hope that, like us, the students also enjoyed the lack of hierarchy and friendly environment. We had full latitude in the decision making and execution, and because of this, our event at times felt more like a party, a party where there is anonymity, but where everything remains totally civilized. Probably it was during these hours that the strongest bonds, memories and future plans were forged.
The lectures comprised in this summer school will be available on the Semiosalong Youtube channel.
RWTH students reflect on the summer school
Thomas Venator
PhD student, Philosophy of Geology
The ISSS’s handling of visual metaphor was a testament to the ever-evolving nature of semiotic studies, underscoring the importance of metaphorical constructions for knowledge in an increasingly visually-centered world.
The summer school layed a groundwork for future explorations and was also useful for my own doctoral research; helping illuminate how we can make progress towards the ‘Geosemiosis’ Vic Baker called for back in 1998.
Coming from a technical background, I enjoyed the attempt to discuss ‘AI’ and particularly appreciated talks on multimodality, structuralism and their interplay with digital architecture.
Set against the elaborate backdrop of Prague, the event combined academic rigor with cultural enrichment to provide a host of valuable memories with new friends. My fondest of these has to be the second evening, standing on a hill with colleagues, to enjoy the city vista and discuss life’s mysteries.
Thus, I was definitely inspired by this summer school and recommend it to enthusiasts, academics, artists, or anyone else intrigued by the endless dance of symbol and meaning.
Sonja Bettermann
MA student, Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies
For me, the semiotics summer school in Prague was a great opportunity to acquire insights look on the various topics of semiotic research. We not only listened to fascinating presentations but also got the chance to discuss extensively during lunch and other breaks. Through the activities organised by the coordinators, I was able to speak with and connect with the other students and professors and learn about their research interests and projects. Since I am currently majoring in the MA program Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies at RWTH Aachen University, the summer school helped me get a better understanding of semiotics, especially metaphors, which is relevant and helpful for my writing certain term papers in semiotics and, also, for my studies in general.
Anna Eskova
MA student, Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies
The International Summer Semiotic School on Visual Metaphor was a very useful and exciting experience. It helped me better understand important theories that I am studying as part of my MA degree in Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies, particularly in regard to the subjects Cognitive Linguistics and Media Semiotics. What I learnred at this Summer School is very helpful for writing some term papers, in which I employ semiotics to analyse perfume advertisements, specifically, the visual representation of different scents. Moreover, the summer school helped me not only to learn more theoretical notions but also to see their application in different fields, starting from linguistics and art and ending with genetics. By attending this summer school I had important realizations about how I want to continue my studies further on, by focusing on specific topics that I anticipate to gain even more relevance in the future.
David Lesmeister
MA student, teacher trainee in English as a foreign language
The Summer School in Prague inspired me, both academically field and personally. The scholarly discourses I listened to, encompassing theories that were knew to me, significantly expanded my horizon. Discussing with students and academics from several universities has encouraged me to explore diverse disciplines and provided new insights into various aspects of my bachelor thesis. The presentations delivered by students ranging from Doctoral to Master and Bachelor degrees contributed to my understanding of theory. This engagement contributed to my understanding of complex concepts and unearthed their relevance in my daily life. Besides academic insights, personally meeting students from various universities and degrees was extremely important and made the Summer School an experience I would not want to miss.
Chiara Schumann
BA student, Linguistics and Literary Studies
BIP+ funding enabled me to participate in the International Semiotic Summer School 2023 in Prague: Visual Metaphor. For me, this event provided highly enriching academic conversations and personal experiences.
I very much enjoyed the diverse lectures on visual metaphors, which complement the BA I am currently undertaking in Linguistics and Literary Studies. For me, it was particularly important to listen to talks on cognitive semiotics and, especially, to have the chance to discuss extensively on the topic with leading researchers in the field, such as Professor Jordan Zlatev. Also, attending presentations by MA and PhD students was very insightful. These experiences helped me clarify my aim to work on developing the cooperation between cognitive linguistics and biosemiotics. Having presented the main idea of my BA thesis, on cross-domain mapping in Thaumoctopus Mimicus, I discussed it with scholars from various universities. This helped me make important progress. I feel genuinely happy about having had these experiences.
By becoming friends with students from many places I improved my English. I had fun by visiting spectacular historical places in Prague, as a group and by discussing about semiotics in beer gardens. It is difficult to imagine a more professionally, culturally and personally fulfilling way of exploring charming European city.
Arbeitsgruppe: Technofeminismus. Feministische Perspektiven auf Wissenschaft und Technik
Ist Technologie neutral oder kann sie sexistische Vorurteile beinhalten? Welche Formen der Ausbeutung von FLINTA* (Frauen, Lesben, intergeschlechtliche, nichtbinäre, trans und agender Personen) entstehen durch digitale Arbeit? Was lehrt uns der Schwarze Feminismus über digitale und technische Formen der Ausbeutung und Geschlechterungerechtigkeit? Können wir feministisch handeln und Objektivität in der Wissenschaft beanspruchen?
Ab dem kommenden Semester wird es an der RWTH Aachen eine Arbeitsgruppe geben, in der diese Fragen gestellt werden. In der Gruppe wird anhand von Texten oder Videobeiträgen diskutiert, die von den Teilnehmenden der Arbeitsgruppe vorgeschlagen werden können.
Erstes Treffen: 17.10.23 um 15.00 Uhr in der Theaterstraße 75, Aachen.
Die Gruppe ist offen für alle Studierenden und Dozent*innen der RWTH Aachen. Es sind keine Vorkenntnisse erforderlich. Wir bitten nur um eine Anmeldung unter: technofeminismus@khk.rwth-aachen.de
Bei Fragen, Anregungen oder Ideen kannst Du uns gerne eine E-Mail schreiben.
New book – Relational and multimodal higher education: Digital, social and environmental perspectives
The new book by Dr. Natasa Lackovic (Lancaster University) and c:o/re team member Dr. Alin Olteanu has just been published in the book series Routledge Studies in Multimodality, managed by Professor Kay O’Halloran.
The book Relational and Multimodal Higher Education: Digital, Social and Environmental Perspectives proposes a relational turn by conceptualizing knowledge and pedagogy as relational and multimodal, analyzed through three dimensions of relationality: social, technological, and environmental.
The volume draws on interdisciplinary approaches that make a case for integrating these interconnected and distinct dimensions in higher education theory and practice. Its novelty lies in combining such a variety of perspectives with Peircean semiotics to explore what it means to learn and live relationally. It emphasizes the importance of critical reflection, rooted in an environmental understanding of knowledge and digital media. This approach integrates materiality, place, and space in higher education, positioning caring, critically reflective and imaginative interactions and interpretations as central for knowledge growth. The volume features practical case studies of relational pedagogy through dialogues with diverse higher education practitioners, which embrace expression and creation through more than one dominant modality of communication and being. The book envisions students and educators as relational agents, with relational awareness and responsibility, aware of their multimodal identities. It highlights how a relational multimodal paradigm can serve as a way forward for universities to address global challenges concerning social, (post)digital, and environmental futures.
This innovative book should be of interest to scholars, students, teachers, and policymakers in higher education, semiotics and multimodality, as well as postdigital, sociomaterial and futures studies.
Lecture Series Winter 2023/24: Lifelikeness
We are happy to announce the program for our Lecture Series during the winter 2023/24. The topic of this semester’s series of lectures is Lifelikeness.
Our invited speakers will explore Lifelikeness through different disciplinary perspectives, such as life and technical sciences, humanities, art history and science journalism.
Please find an overview of the dates and speakers in the program.
The lecture series takes place in presence and online from October 25h, 2023 to February 7th, 2024, Wednesdays from 5 to 6.30 pm. Please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
| 25.10.2023 Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University): Life from scratch | ||
| 08.11.2023 Andrei Korbut (University of Bremen, c:o/re Fellow): Robot, a Laboratory “Animal”: Producing Knowledge through and about Human-Robot Interaction | ||
| 22.11.2023 Emre Neftci (Forschungszentrum Jülich): Neuromorphic Computing: Inspiration from the Brain for Future AI Technologies | ||
| 06.12.2023 Esther Leslie (Birkbeck, University of London): Art’s Mediation as Remediation: On Some Artworks and their reuses of Toxic Materials | ||
| 10.01.2024 Massimiliano Simons (Maastricht University): Towards an Ecology of Technoscience | ||
| 24.01.2024 Ben Woodard (ICI Berlin): Flowers for Agouti: Epigenetics and the Genealogy of Uplift | ||
| 07.02.2024 Michael Friedman (Tel Aviv University, c:o/re Fellow): Bio-inspired Materials and Dreams of Inspiration |
Lecture and discussion with Phil MacNaghten: The knowledge politics of making anticipatory knowledge
On October 12, Phil Macnaghten will give a talk at c:o/re about The knowledge politics of making anticipatory knowledge. This event is part of the 5th STS-Forum at RWTH Aachen University.
Tagung: Briefe des 15. Jahrhunderts als Quellen für interkulturelle Kontakte zwischen Italien und dem Osmanischen Reich
From the 19th to 20th October 2023, a conference on “Briefe des 15. Jahrhunderts als Quellen für interkulturelle Kontakte zwischen Italien und dem Osmanischen Reich” will take place at c:o/re, organized by Florian Hartmann.
Supercharge the real-world impact of Research, Innovation and Enterprise with brand building methodologies
IAN BATES
If there’s one word I hear regularly among the academic and innovation community in the UK and mainland Europe it’s impact.
What do we mean by impact?
A common understanding has emerged, along with a standardised method of measuring real-world impact. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a touchstone to evaluate performance and are used by organisations like the Times Higher Education University Rankings. And usefully, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) has defined impact as … “the effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia.” (in Guide to the REF results).
So it’s about how cutting-edge research is unlocked to release its full potential and make positive contributions to global challenges. That gets us all on the same page. But can practices normally associated with commercial brand building contribute to fast-tracking real-world impact from the research at institutions such as RWTH Aachen University?
Ian Bates
Ian Bates is the Founder and Creative Partner at Firehaus, the brand consultancy for higher education institutions, enterprise hubs and spin-outs. He worked with many global blue-chip brands and has created, reviewed and judged thousands of creative campaigns over a 30+ year career. He has helped found, build, merge and sell agencies – leading multi-disciplinary creative teams. He was a tutor for the Institute of Data & Marketing, a GRT Trustee and a speaker at more events than he can remember, including Cannes. His awards include the prestigious DMA Grand Prix. He has judged for D&AD, The Drum, DMA & BIMA among many others.
Let’s start with what we mean by brand, so we remain on the same page.
A brand is not a logo or a colour palette. It is not something captured in a book or powerpoint. Insightfully Calin Hertioga and Johannes Christensen, define a brand as“A brand is the sum of all expressions by which an entity (person, organization, company, business unit, city, nation, etc.) intends to be recognized.” (in Interbrand).
Critically, these expressions are communicated – in words, pictures and behaviours. Many will talk about this in terms of anthropomorphization. I’m going to boldly suggest that what is potentially holding back research from making impact is not funding. It’s being able to communicate beyond the confines of academia to engage policymakers, corporate partners, investors and yes – the media. It is a matter of science communication. And that’s why approaches used in brand building are important tools for researchers to embrace.
Of course, not every piece of research needs to become a ‘brand’. But if the intention is for your school, institute, academic consortium or research team to engage and influence a variety of audiences over time and deliver real-world impact, then creating distinct brand associations in their hearts and minds will increase recall, engagement and efficiency in communications.
That’s called brand positioning.
Future partners and associates should also experience brand behaviours that are consistent with this identity. There’s no point in talking about being collaborative for instance if, in reality, everyone experiences quite the opposite.
In business the imperative to communicate with a wide range of people (even in niche markets) forces organisations to be clear about why they deserve their attention (which is in short supply), and their hard-earned cash (in increasingly short supply).
So, thinking of academic research through these optics leads to problematising through the questions:
- Why do you deserve our attention (or ‘what problem are you solving’)?
- Why do you deserve our funding?
As one might imagine, the people asking these questions aren’t waiting for the contents of a thesis to drop into their inbox in response. A satisfying answer requires a story – a narrative that your audiences (and for research there’s always more than one) can see themselves as part of, a picture to understand and respond to – intellectually and emotionally. Far from dumbing down research this implies increasing impact, its value and frankly, without any contradiction, fame.
A cohesive brand identity will increase the likelihood of maintaining a culture of innovation and…
- intensify the clarity and communication of an institution’s purpose, mission and vision;
- inspire emotional engagement;
- invigorate internal stakeholders.
For research to impact a wider audience than merely academic:
- It needs a simple, distinct story and visual short-hand;
- It needs positioning in contemporary culture(s);
- And it needs an emotional heart.
I acknowledge there is a tension between the universities as hives of education, research and personal development on the one hand, and as engines of commercial enterprise on the other. This tension can lead to a reluctance in embracing methodologies normally applied to business. Brand building shouldn’t be one of them.
There is significant value to be gained from adopting approaches commonly used in commercial organisations. Brand methodologies can not only improve communication but also help to lay the organisational and cultural foundations that support continued innovation and supercharge research and enterprise, leading to corporate partnerships, spin-outs and real-world impact.
I experienced an example of the positive impact created by articulating a Purpose, Mission and Vision within one large university school. After a simple 60 minute on-boarding process, we engaged over 120 academics in developing new ideas for how they’d bring their fledgling new brand to life – with some truly innovative results affecting course structures, research focus, corporate partnerships and professional development.
Changing the world, even a little part of it, for the better is too important for the impact of transformative research to remain in an academic journal paper or the confines of an institution. It’s terrible to think that the answers to some of the world’s most intractable problems are locked away when they could be out there to implement, further exploration and multiple interpretations. Communication lies at the heart of this challenge. Brand building methodologies might help universities get there.
Mini-case studies
Interact – Pioneering Human Insight for Industry
A Made Smarter Innovation funded, Economic and Social Research Council-led network that needed a narrative to speak to three distinct audiences – researchers, industrial digital technology (IDT) providers and manufacturers. By articulating a shared sense of purpose and creating a compelling name and narrative, InterAct has rapidly expanded its reach and built a distinct brand identity, developing hundreds of connections within the wider manufacturing ecosystem. It has now committed over £1.2 million of funding to 37 different research projects, incorporating dozens of UK universities, with the aim of creating human insight focused outputs to inform a rapidly growing community of policymakers, IDT providers and manufacturing businesses.
Discribe – Imagining Secure Digital Futures
This is a groundbreaking social science-led digital security research programme. Social sciences are woefully underrepresented in the sector, despite potentially having a significant role to play. With a redefined narrative and proposition it will shortly become part of a new University of Bath institute.
Quantum Frontier – Where Business Breaks Boundaries
Initiated by University of Bristol this project will shift the perception of what’s possible at the extremes of commercial innovation. The brand we created collaboratively with the team will foster collaboration between researchers, corporate partners and civic authorities to sit at the cutting edge of global innovation and enterprise.
Radii Devices
This academic spin-out was finding it difficult to articulate the global applications for their research. An intervention using brand building principles has given the team a new-found confidence in communication and unlocked the story that has opened further investment and potential markets in Europe, the UK and US.
