The emergence of what we know as ‘the knowledge society’ has led to an increasing international political focus on research, including the relationship between research and teaching. In educational sociology, this issue is referred to as the ‘research-teaching-nexus’ and is particularly relevant in institutions of higher education.

In Denmark, the political focus has not least been strong in relation to universities for applied science, University Colleges (UC). Previously,  UC’s have been considered to be institutions that "apply" research results that are produced in the academic world of universities in order to make such results applicable for professional practice through development work. More recently, however, UC’s are obliged to produce research-based knowledge themselves.

The UC-sector has tried to define a special framework for its research inspired by the so-called Frascati manual, which has proposed some classifications of research, for example ‘applied research’.

The UCs' new notion of knowledge production and transfer is often visually presented as a model, which depicts a triangle placed inside a circle, where the corners of the triangle represent resp. research, education and professional practice. The model, which has been named the ‘knowledge cycle model’, has become a powerful metaphor. It indicates that UC’s have gone from a position that envision knowledge as something transmitted from the "classical universities" to the UC’s, to a position that envision knowledge as being produced by many stakeholders and in many arenas. The circle surrounding the triangle signals that there is a dynamic relationship between the three arenas: not only does the research initiate and influence the other two areas, but education and practice can also inspire the research domain.

However, the knowledge cycle model is ambiguios. It signals that research, education and professional practice are three separate areas. The UCs have probably felt a need to mark research as an independent area, as a response to the new requirements mentioned earlier. But the UC’s have also wanted to communicate that the three areas are closely intertwined by virtue of the desire for ‘circulation’ and ‘flow’.

A characteristic feature of this knowledge cycle metaphor is that it almost reflect knowledge as what some have called "the idealist conception of knowledge" (Gherardi & Nicolini 2003), that is "commodified" as a thing that can be transmitted, received and stored. (Maton 2005).

Recent research has also indicated that knowledge does not just circulate freely between all arenas. Firstly, different research projects establish relationship between the arenas in different ways. Secondly, transferring knowledge often involves extensive and resource-intensive recontextualisations in order to function in new contexts (Larsen et al. 2020). When different actors talk about knowledge transfer, they often only talk about the involved actors in the relationship and possibly what mediates in the relationship, that is: articles, publications, conferences, etc.. However, explication of the concrete actions involved in the transfer process are often non-specific or absent. This might indicate that the language for describing knowledge practices is insufficiently equipped to grasp the transformation of knowledge that takes place  in research projects (R&D). The research question of this project is thus:

What characterizes knowledge practices, which emerge through research projects, and how do these knowledge practices establish different relationships between the three arenas of research, education and professional practice?

Overall, we address the research question with a practice theoretical approach (Schatzki 2010) (Latour 1987). As regards the concept of knowledge, we argue for a process-oriented concept of knowledge based on Freemann and Sturdy's divisions of knowledge processes as phases or stages. Based on this we present a critique of the knowledge circulation metaphor (Sfard 1998).

The project, which this paper is based upon, is currently in progress. Analysis of data are ongoing. In the studies of the Research Question, the methodological inspiration comes from Adele Clarke's Situational Analysis (SA). We put emphasis on how knowledge practices are enacted, but through discursive representations. Applying Clark's theories on such representations, we draw situational and relational maps that enables us to identify various social arenas and illuminate how knowledge is enacted in each of these. The methodological approach is reflected in the choice of empirical sources: Policy- analysis: A policy analysis is carried out which explore the emergence of the knowledge conception which developed from new legislation and is communicated in the circulation metaphor. This analysis is carried out on the basis of selected texts as well as interviews with individual key actors. The texts mainly comprise four reports drafted by the Danish Evaluation Institute. They explain the intentions of the relevant legal texts and they have gathered examples and experiences from various UCs. Case study Next, five research project carried out in a UC are selected and analyzed. The purpose is to investigate how different research projects enacted the knowledge circulation model. The empirical material from the projects contain Zoom-recordings of conversations with project-managers about how they considered knowledge transfer in their project. These recordings are supplemented with in-depth interviews with key actors associated with the projects to explore discursive and material arrangements of knowledge practices including transfer and transformation issues (Kemmis et al.2014). In order to get close to the participants’ practices, these interviews are conducted with inspiration from Davide Nicolini's interview-to-the-double method (Nicolini 2009). Based on the multi-sided data material, different discourses, discursive positions and actions in relation to practicing knowledge and knowledge transformations are analyzed.

The expected result of the project is to contribute with new conceptions that, to a greater degree than the knowledge cycle metaphor, can capture process-features of knowledge and thus make diversity and difference visible in the way knowledge is produced and transformed. In addition, a better conceptualization can qualify researchers’ and project managers’ considerations about the potentials of research project's for different types of transformations, relationships, and impacts. A better understanding of knowledge as something that is practiced in different types of relationships rather than something that circulates around as things, will make it possible to better recognize the value of research projects, and create more realistic expectations of what knowledge is and can do in the university sector.

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