Impact Driven Research

Universities become increasingly important in addressing societal challenges. These challenges are seen on all levels, where regional challenges are tackled by UAS, their research and innovations can be transferred to European and even global level. Universities of Applied Sciences are well equipped to tackle these challenges due to their approach to research and innovation. This approach is problem-oriented, often in a triple or quadruple helix model with society, SME’s and business partners.

These developments resonate with the views on universities of the future, where cooperation with various partners becomes increasingly important to increase the results and societal impact of research. Applied research contributes to a future-proof labour market and tackles global challenges by addressing them in a practice based regional context.

The UASNL EU Office in Brussels helps the 20 committed UAS to increase their profile in Europe, build a strong network and represent the voice of UASNL in the European context. One of the main challenge European funding programmes and policies in research and innovation face is the societal impact, or how to translate fundamental research into benefits for society. UAS have this process in their DNA, and all applied research follows the methodology of connecting research to society, SME’s and public institutions.

All UASNL institutes are committed to the SDG’s, and they focus on one or more of the sustainability challenges. The SDG’s act as a strategic guideline from where specific research is being designed. Questions that are being tackled are very diverse, but cover challenges seen in Climate, Health, Sustainable Societies and Innovation. Solutions are developed with relevant industry and societal partners, and often cover the whole scope of technology, from fundamental research design to the testing of prototypes. Next to this technology driven approach, UASNL also work on societal innovation, where community engagement is developed through a similar model as the innovation of new technology. This is essential in applied research, to ensure market acceptance of an innovation, whilst ensuring usability.