Collaborating Across Cultures: The 2013 RENKEI Researcher Development School in

Bristol and Kyoto

Dr Alison Leggett Dr Robin Humphrey

Jane Nolan MBE

RENKEI School Aims

• Develop future research leaders with the skills to lead collaborations between different disciplines and cultures (in the broadest sense of the word, also to include academia and business cultures)

• Facilitate the formation of active collaborations between participants to achieve a tangible outcome

• Develop a sustainable network of researchers across Japan and the UK

RENKEI: School Design • Skills development

• Opportunity to explore the theme – Urban Sustainability and Resilience

• Experience the cultures first-hand

• Opportunity to work on and pitch real ideas

• UK and Japanese lenses

• Building the network

Exploration Discovery Idea generation and opportunity

finding

Unlocking collaborative

potential

Working across cultures,

disciplines and domains

RENKEI – Collaborating Across Cultures

The RENKEI Journey

The Contributors

Professor Sir Eric Thomas, Vice Chancellor, UoB Professor Tetsuo Sawaragi, Deputy Director International Affairs, Kyoto University Professor Guy Orpen, Pro Vice Chancellor, UoB George Ferguson, Elected Mayor of Bristol Dr Janet Maxwell, Strategic Director of Public Health, Bristol City Council Clare Reddington, Director of iShed and Pervasive Media Studio Caroline Bird, Hon Research Fellow, UoB Prof Ella Richie Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Newcastle University

The Contributors Prof Simin Davoudi, Newcastle University

Prof Stephanie Glendinning, Newcastle University

Dr Philippa Bayley, UoB

Prof Herbert Girardet, Co-Founder, World Future Council

Nick Sturge, Business Incubator Manager, UoB

David Standingford, Director, Zenotech

Mark Ellis, Mervarde Ltd

Dean Jones, Rolls Royce

Prof Joe McGeehan, UoB

Prof Lars Sundstrom, Director of SARTRE

The Contributors Dr Andrew Collins, Industrial Research Fellow, UoB Prof Wendy Larner, UoB Prof Leroy White, UoB Michael Day, CEO, Decipher Impact Dr Lorraine Hudson, Bristol City Council Dr David Glowacki, danceroom Spectroscopy and UoB Dr Tom Mitchell, danceroom Spectroscopy and UWE Prof John Goddard OBE, Newcastle University Jamie Pike, Director Hamilton House Prof Susan Robertson, UoB Ciaran Hagan, PhD Student, UoB

Additional Facilitators

Pete Bailie, Vox Coaching Matt Wait, Vox Coaching Dr Heather Sears, University of Leeds Dave Jarman, UoB Daniela Bultoc, UCL Dr Richard Hinchcliffe, University of Liverpool Dr Julie Reeves, University of Southampton Jo James, University of Southampton Clare Brophy, UoB Dr Sam Cathro, UoB

Exploration • Day 1: The Grand Challenge of Urban

Sustainability and Resilience – Bristol and UK lens – Skills for successful interdisciplinary

collaboration.

Discovery

• Days 2 and 3: Drama and performance to:

– build confidence in communication

– develop practical skills for understanding and interacting with people from other cultures.

• Day 4: Communicating and presenting ideas effectively across disciplines and cultural domains

• Day 5:

– creativity tools and techniques to generate ideas

– exploring entrepreneurial mindset

• Day 6: National Composites Centre – Panels from the private, public and voluntary

sectors

Idea generation and opportunity finding

• Day 7: The World Café

– Generate ideas in response to the theme

– Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural teams formed to take the ideas forward and explore the opportunities.

Unlocking collaborative potential

• Day 8: Myers Briggs Type Indicator

– How different team members take in information, make decisions, and interact with others.

Day 9: Preparing for the next stage:

– Teams develop their concepts

– Consider their viability as potential businesses

Working across cultures, disciplines and domains

• Today: Teams present their plans

– Interdisciplinary collaborative working

– Developing the business concept for Kyoto

Team Kyozon

EcoVision

Team Panda

W2E Futures

Evening Activities

Reflection

• RENKEI has encouraged reflective practice, with daily reflective questions

• Unpacking, sense-making, evaluating

• The programme encourages participants to learn from their experiences by – critically reviewing their actions

– considering the impact of those actions and

– planning what they would do in similar situations in the future.

Collaborating across Cultures – spanning the boundaries

• We have considered how to span the boundaries of academia, disciplines, civil society and business

• Exploring entrepreneurship as a source of creativity, innovation, drive and value creation not only in the economic sphere but also in civil society and the public sphere

• a source of opportunities to make a difference with research

Team Presentations

• Today – early stage ideas and concepts

• Reflections on learning from the programme

• Teams are about to set out on their research collaboration

• They will present their research and their developed business propositions in Kyoto

• They will explore the impact they could make with their cross cultural, interdisciplinary research projects

RENKEI • The programme has been very intensive

• The Participants have worked extremely hard and with huge commitment

• They have formed a RENKEI community

• We feel certain that the Bristol and Kyoto programmes will create an ongoing network for research collaborations

• We look forward to Kyoto and the next part of the programme

京都 Kyoto