How can we influence EU programmes?

Mikkel Tamstorf served as deputy head of department for ten years before taking over as head of department in 2023 and has been involved in several reorganisations over the years.  After taking up his new role, he therefore felt that it was natural to take a look at the department’s goals, values and identity – in other words, what they stand for and the knowledge they would like to deliver for the big agendas of the future: biodiversity, the green transition, climate change and sustainability. But without money no research, so they also took at systematic look at their sources of income.

“We would like to deliver knowledge to politicians to inform their decisions concerning nature, the environment and the climate. And since we work with issues that are not unique to Denmark, but where legislation is affected by EU directives and where impacts transgress national borders, we would very much like to influence the EU agenda and participate in even more EU collaboration projects. Our success rate is already pretty high, but you can always do better,” says Mikkel Tamstorf.

Appointment of strategic funding adviser
It takes time to gain influence and a voice in, for example, the development of EU research programmes. The department has therefore decided to appoint an adviser dedicated to working strategically and long-term with external funding – in close collaboration with management and the research committee. Her work involves monitoring EU agendas, finding partners and organising meetings in the EU – with a lot of help from Central Denmark EU Office and the Research Support Office. The EU Presidency and the Chairmanship of the Arctic Council have also provided opportunities for contributing to various research agendas.  The adviser also concerns herself with external funding both from Danish foundations (e.g. Innovation Fund Denmark and the Novo Nordisk Foundation) and from the EU. “Our funding adviser used to be more focused on individual applications. But as our researchers are pretty autonomous and as they can also reach out to Tech Research Support and the Research Support Office, as a department we felt that in the long term we would benefit more from trying to influence the research agendas to match our fields of research,” says Mikkel Tamstorf. It has taken some dialogue with the researchers to explain the reasoning behind this decision and raise awareness of the support available from Tech Research Support and the Research Support Office. But he is also finding that the department’s slightly sharper profile and focus on application-oriented research for the benefit of society is attractive to many researchers. “They want to contribute knowledge to the important nature and climate agendas and to exert their influence, more than pursuing a personal journey of discovery. So I believe that we have made the right strategic decisions for the department,” concludes Mikkel Tamstorf.

You can influence the work programme - read more here.

Reda about CDEU here.