New impact report: How research creates value, knowledge, and societal impact

How are grants from the Independent Research Fund Denmark transformed into new knowledge, academic progress, and contributions to the development of our society? In a new impact report, DFF presents for the first time an overview of how its research funding leads to research results, collaborations, competencies, and ideas that generate value, both within society and the academic world.

Download Independent Research Fund Denmark’s Impact Report 2025

It is more important than ever to demonstrate how free and researcher-driven research lays the foundation for our knowledge society — and, not least, how it contributes to our ability to understand and address major societal challenges.

“The public conversation often focuses on speed and technology, but it all begins with insight and recognition. And we only gain those if we also dare to invest in independent, curiosity-driven research,” says Søren Serritzlew, Chair of the Board at Independent Research Fund Denmark.

The fund’s new Impact Report 2025 shows how its grants not only generate knowledge on paper, but also build bridges to society and strengthen the next generation of researchers.

Highlights from the Report are: 

  • 4 out of 5 grant recipients collaborate with actors outside the university as part of their research — including private sector partners
  • Each DFF research grant leads to an average of 8.5 publications in peer-reviewed journals
  • Since 2018, more than 9,500 researchers, including nearly 1,800 PhD students and 1,900 postdocs, have been affiliated with DFF projects, thereby strengthening research environments and cross-disciplinary, international collaboration

Research impact in many different forms

Research can create impact in many different ways. This report does not cover all possible impact pathways, but follows five key routes through which research can contribute to society:

  1. in the education system
  2. in the economy and private sector
  3. in legislation and public sector regulation
  4. in cultural life
  5. and in broader society

These five pathways to societal research impact were defined by the fund in 2016 in the publication "Five Pathways to Research Impact."

Download Independent Research Fund Denmark’s Impact Report 2025

Value for Society  and for Science

Based on data from more than 1,300 completed research projects between 2019 and 2025, the report highlights how DFF-funded research contributes to new collaborations, capacity-building in research environments, and the development of societally relevant knowledge — knowledge that can help solve major challenges both in the short and long term.

The report demonstrates that idea-driven, researcher-led research delivers value not only to science, but to society at large.

It also represents one of several contributions to the ongoing debate on how research is funded, documented, and communicated. For example, the report can be read in connection with the Danish Research Portal, which provides an overview of all public research funding in Denmark including that of the fund.

Download Independent Research Fund Denmark’s Impact Report 2025

Background: Where does the data come from?

  • DFF asks all grant recipients to report on the potential impact of their completed research projects including effects beyond academia through so-called final reports.
  • The Impact Report is based on data from grant applications and allocations, as well as the fund’s final reports, which researchers are required to submit when completing their projects.
  • Pages 3–7 and page 9 are based on data from DFF’s applications and grants covering both free and thematic funding instruments in the period 2018–2024.
  • Page 8 shows the distribution of allocated free research funds across the five scientific councils and the Cross-council Committee for the period 2018–2024.
  • Page 10 includes all project participants who have been part of DFF-funded projects between 2018 and 2024, across both free and thematic funding instruments.
  • Pages 11 to 22 present data on the five societal pathways to research impact, based on final reports from 1,328 projects completed in the period 2019–2025
  • Independent Research Fund Denmark has received a total of 49 applications for ‘Research on vulnerability and poor well-being’, and funding has been awarded to five projects. The success rate is 10% measured by the number of applications.
  • ‘Research on vulnerability and poor well-being’ is one of 12 politically determined themes to which Independent Research Fund Denmark will allocate funding in 2025.
  • Since 2018, Independent Research Fund Denmark has awarded research grants within politically determined themes, which are financed through annual political agreements on the distribution of the research reserve.
  • The programmes are open to applications from all scientific fields that can contribute knowledge relevant to the theme. Politically prioritised thematic research serves as a supplement to independent research based on researchers’ own curiosity-driven initiatives.