Research and Knowledge Exchange

We're committed to high quality research that delivers real impact for society.

Abertay works across traditional research boundaries

Abertay is a compact, focused University with an established reputation for working well across traditional research boundaries, as well as within new and emerging disciplines and sectors. We are committed to high quality research that delivers real impact for society from environmental research into sustainable businesses and food production, to using computer games as creative and critical tools to understand the behaviours and structures that drive and influence individuals in the societies in which they exist, our researchers are solving complex real-world problems to fuel innovation-led growth and sustainable development.

Society faces unprecedented socio-economic and environmental challenges, the incessant emergence of sector disruptors, and the problems as well as benefits afforded by global connectivity and competition – these are truly wicked, complex challenges often requiring mixed discipline approaches. Although we are a small institution, we support a diversity of subjects and sector areas which facilitates a creative and agile environment able to respond to research challenges. Our Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy, R-LINCS2 (Research-Led Innovation Nodes for Contemporary Society), integrates our research into a single Abertay-wide initiative where discipline expertise from a range of subject areas is integrated and used to support discovery, innovation and translational research within and across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

We have drawn on our industry-facing heritage, effective interdisciplinary practice and enhanced our existing expertise and internationally recognised successes. Strategic RKE activity is focused within and across Challenge Spaces (Creative Industries & Cultural Vitality; Caring Science & Active Ageing; Security, Equality & Social Justice; Sustainable Development & Inclusive Living) addressing key local, national and international priorities that our research base best positions us to respond to. To address these Challenge Spaces we draw on our research expertise that is encapsulated in our Pooled Excellence (Co-creation & external engagement; Digital transformation & emerging technologies; Effective learning & pedagogy; Experimentation & systems modelling; Human interaction & user experience; Social identity & human behaviour), which represent cross-institutional ways of working, and our academic units, the Divisions (https://www.abertay.ac.uk/research-overview/).

This framework enables us to work effectively across discipline boundaries to devise innovative solutions that address challenging and complex research questions, drive development of new and nascent research areas and strengthen disciplines through cross-fertilisation. The Abertay environment stimulates a virtuous circle where maximising the use of research excellence helps drive innovation, economic and social impact through partnership working with key stakeholders, which in turn feeds back to expand and enrich our own research and teaching excellence, relevance, capacity and capability.

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