Create.Collaborate.Change.: New vision and strategy

Taking a long view into the future, the Royal Danish Academy is now launching its 2050 Vision and Strategy for 2022–2025. The point of departure is a rapidly changing world, and the issue at hand has been how the Academy, as a cultural and educational institution, can prepare itself to make the greatest possible impact on addressing the major global challenges ahead.

Accordingly, the Academy has completed a process that involved the joint participation of employees, students and management in providing input for a vision for the long term (2050) and, in the short term, a specific strategy for the next four years.

The process resulted in a vision and a strategy: ‘Create.Collaborate.Change. – towards a balanced world’.

High professional standards, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and new teaching formats
The ambitious 2050 Vision describes how the Academy will focus on addressing challenges such as climate change, changes to the planet’s eco-systems, the scarcity of natural resources and new societal conditions. In addition, the job market and working practices are expected to change due to a radical increase in the digitisation of society.

These challenges call for the Academy to strengthen its core area of expertise – ‘Create’ – and heighten the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration across its fields of expertise and sectors and enter into larger systemic contexts – ‘Collaborate’ – as well as develop new teaching formats that extend further out into society – ‘Change’. According to the Vision:

Create:

By 2050, we will be among the strongest global academic environments in our respective artistic and scientific disciplines and collaboration projects with peers.

Collaborate:

By 2050, we will play a key role in the implementation of changes that are essential for the global community. We will do this by bringing our technical expertise into play through collaborating on systemic solutions across technical sectors and academic disciplines.

Change:

By 2050, we will have set new standards for learning activities and in how we disseminate knowledge and create change. We will also be partnering with new shareholders locally and globally – thus enhancing the impact of our knowledge and developmental methods.

Strategic targets and actions for the next four years
The next four years constitute the first stepping-stone towards our Vision and indicate specific proposals for strategic targets and actions. These will include initiatives that enhance our expertise, in-house cooperation at the Academy and externally, as well as teaching formats. Examples of targets and actions guided by the Vision:

Create:

Render our artistic methods more transparent, widening recognition and strengthening our graduates.

/ Transform workshops and laboratories into clearer bases for scientific and artistic research and training – with a particular focus on digital tools.

Collaborate:

Escalate interdisciplinary collaboration with institutions and companies.

/ Generate more synergy and a strong sense of community around a sustainable campus in the campus plan – including relocating the School of Conservation to the Holmen campus in Copenhagen.

Change:

Increase the volume and widen the scope of our supplementary training and postgraduate study programmes – nationally, globally, digitally and physically.

Continue developing our values
As a framework for efforts targeting our Vision and Strategy, the Academy will continue working on strengthening its values, which is a prerequisite for ensuring that the Academy is based on trust and that it is a secure workplace which inspires high professional standards and a high level of job satisfaction.

The values are unchanged from the last strategy period: freedom and community; critical reflection; well-being; diversity; assertiveness.

Over the next four years, the Academy will particularly focus on well-being and diversity, including sexism.