When research ends up in a drawer, welfare pays the price

The welfare state is under pressure. An ageing population, shortages of skilled professionals, increasingly complex citizen service pathways and tight financial frameworks point to a growing need for new solutions – and for the knowledge we already possess to be translated into practice to a much greater extent.

For this reason, the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Copenhagen and the Social Investment Fund have entered a four-year strategic partnership on welfare innovation and social impact investing.

The aim of the collaboration is, among other things, to strengthen the link between research and practice and to identify initiatives that can be developed into social impact investments with the potential for scaling. The partners will also work together to develop the financing pathway from idea to impact.

Knowledge that works in practice

The agreement is intended to make it easier to translate social science research into solutions that can be applied by municipalities, organisations and other welfare actors.

“As a university, we have a responsibility to contribute to innovation – also within welfare. Unfortunately, the path from research to solutions in the welfare state is often too long, and financing the scaling of new, effective interventions remains a significant challenge. Through this collaboration with the Social Investment Fund, we gain a strong partner in our efforts to build bridges between research and welfare,” says Vibeke Koushede, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

From knowledge to impact

The Social Investment Fund works with social impact investments, in which the effects of interventions are documented and used as the basis for developing and scaling new solutions.

“If social investments are to create real change, they require both solid evidence and solutions that work in practice. We are therefore very pleased with the collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences, which gives us access to strong research environments, new analytical methods and a stronger knowledge base. We believe this will help further develop the way we work with social investments and strengthen the field of impact investing more broadly,” says Camilla Bjerre Damgaard, Managing Director of the Social Investment Fund.

The collaboration will include joint method development, evaluation, social science analyses and knowledge sharing between research environments and practice.

The partners will also contribute to the public debate on how research, innovation and social impact investments can help shape the welfare state of the future.