Kindness in academia: A new path to excellence
: 27.02.2025
A trio of researchers at Aalborg University and the University of Copenhagen are working to promote kindness and excellence in research culture through the ELIS initiative. They believe that a culture of kindness can help researchers achieve better results and create a more attractive work environment for younger generations.
By Sofie Astrup, AAU Communication and Public Affairs
Photo: Private photo
According to Michael Skovdal Rathleff, Professor and research group leader at the Department of Health Science and Technology, a culture of competition and hierarchical structures drive parts of the research world and can make it less attractive to younger generations.
In an attempt to break with the existing culture, he runs ELIS – Excellence and Kindness in Research Training in conjunction with Julie Midtgaard and Thomas Bandholm, both professors at the University of Copenhagen.
"As researchers, we focus on each of our own specific areas. But in ELIS, we agree on what is even more important: culture and values. This suggests that a research culture of kindness where we care for each other can help us all to better achieve excellence and success in our work," says Michael Skovdal Rathleff.
Through ELIS, they are holding various activities in both Aalborg and Copenhagen to jumpstart the dialogue on good research group culture. According to Michael Skovdal Rathleff, the goal of the initiative is to create dialogue on how we embrace both excellence and kindness.
The research trio has worked together for several years, and they are running the ELIS project on their own time because they see it as a great necessity. According to Michael Skovdal Rathleff, academia has become less attractive to younger people, and he believes that part of the explanation can be found in the way academia works and in the culture that exists.
"We have seen various trends, especially in the United States, where many people are leaving academia, and we have seen extremely unfortunate examples of senior people stealing results from junior researchers, which started the hashtag #pleasedontstealmywork in Denmark. Therefore, ELIS will contribute to the debate about what can be changed in order for academia to become the place we all think is best to be a part of," he says.
The health science doctoral schools at Aalborg University and the University of Copenhagen have thus signed on to making the values of ELIS a central part of what the schools represent, because they want to embrace kindness in order to achieve excellence. The trio also plans to apply for external funding in the hope of being able to hire a research assistant and run more activities for other researchers.
In order to create a good research culture, ELIS suggests that a research group examines what each of its members value in a group. In Michael Skovdal Rathleffs' own research group, they have hung six promises on the door to remind each other of their shared values.
"We have made six promises that are important in our group, focusing on kindness so that we can create excellence and produce knowledge that is relevant to society. But we've also found that excellence and kindness mean something different to all of us. That's why we've made #ELIS4us and #ELIS4me," he explains.
The two new hashtags stand as a response to #pleasedontstealmywork. With #ELIS4me, all members of a research group can put their own wishes for a good working environment into words, and in #ELIS4us they can compile them to stand as a group's shared basic values for a good work culture. Michael Skovdal Rathleff has thought about the hashtag himself in the leadership of his research group. He wants to create spaces that everyone in the group can contribute to.
"My #ELIS4me is that I want to create a platform where we can create more impact and value together than we can individually. For me, it has been an important realization that the path to becoming a professor involves research, teaching and attracting research funding. But with the title also comes a responsibility for people and for creating good research environments. So I am very focused on developing as a leader and on creating an environment where my colleagues and junior researchers thrive and succeed," he says.
Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs