Clear-cut communication
PhD student Inger Høedt-Rasmussen is part of the competition "Stjerner med hjerner (stars with brains)"
As something new, the national Festival of Research opens with a competition between eight chosen PhD students from all over Denmark. The challenge is: Research communication. Who best communicates his/her field of research beyond the borders of the research world? How is the academic rhetoric translated into a language everybody understands?
What you communicate is what you know
On 28 April, PhD student Inger Høedt-Rasmussen from the Law Department participates in the competition "Stjerner med hjerner" initiated by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. With a law degree and a pedagogy degree, extensive managerial experience and a teacher of the year award in 1991, it is safe to say that Inger Høedt-Rasmussen qualifies for this research communication competition. To her, communication is an essential part of research.
- What you know is more or less insignificant if you don't know how to communicate it. Communicating my research field is an interesting and necessary part of my job. Actually, it is an academic field in itself. When we want free and independent research, being able to explain to the users what you do and why it is important, must be a minimum requirement, says Inger Høedt-Rasmussen.
The multidisciplinary element in being able to communicate research is a future core competence, and according to Inger Høedt-Rasmussen, the future will bring a huge demand for people who know how to couple several competences.
The MSc in Business Administration and Commercial Law is a good example of this multidisciplinarity. We live in a complex and international world, where we have to be able to relate to many academic fields and subject combinations. Every day, I link my practical business experience from the law firm Frølundwinsløw to the university world through my industrial PhD, says Inger Høedt-Rasmussen.
Insist on the good life
The research field, which Inger Høedt-Rasmussen will be communicating during the competition, is identity formation in the legal profession - a topic that she works with everyday at CBS. The legal professional standard must be seen in a management perspective, in which professionalism, ethics, values, happiness and business acumen form a whole, so our legal profession gets the ability and the will to take a social responsibility.
- Studies from USA show that many Americans live an extremely hard business life. They lack job satisfaction, meaning and direction. I'm interested in studying the same kind of pressure in Denmark, and how for instance mindfulness makes the individual insist on the good life in a profession, which is responsible for maintaining law and order and fundamental democratic rights, Inger Høedt-Rasmussen explains.
Stars with brains
The Festival of Research runs from 28-30 April and provides the Danes with insight into new knowledge and the world of research. It is the seventh festival in a row, and it opens with an event at Copenhagen City Hall on 28 April, where HRH Princess Marie will present the research communication award to a prominent researcher. The eight PhD students each gets three minutes to present their research to an invited audience and an expert panel. Johan Olsen, researcher and lead singer in the Danish band Magtens Korridorer will be hosting the competition.