Building bridges through communication and connection — BRIGHT at DTU

Why BRIGHT at DTU asked us in

BRIGHT at DTU exists to tackle problems no single department or discipline can solve alone — sustainable materials, microbial foods, microorganisms for net-zero agriculture. The science is mission-driven, and mission-driven science depends on people who can work across boundaries.

Kali Lamont and Betina Helle Schytte, who together lead the BRiGHT Institute's Organising committee, had a specific question: how do you turn an annual seminar into a turning point in how people collaborate, rather than another event people attend? The Annual Seminar was one of the few moments where the whole community — researchers and support staff — would be in the same room. They wanted to use it well.

Three challenges shaped our design:

• A way of working that is new for many. Academic careers reward deep specialisation. BRIGHT at DTU asks people to also reach across disciplines and build trust with unfamiliar colleagues.
• A mix of seniority with different starting points. Master's students, PhDs, postdocs and senior scientists experience interdisciplinary collaboration differently.
• Support staff carrying invisible weight. Coordinators, lab managers and facilities staff are navigating the same transition, often without a forum to address it together.

What we delivered

Four parallel sessions, designed as one connected experience. Each was capped at 25 participants and led by an experienced IMPROV facilitator.

Session	Audience	Format	Participants
Team Development for Support Staff	Coordinators, lab managers, secretaries, facilities staff	3 hours, morning	24
Leveraging Your Network	PhD students, postdocs, senior researchers	2 hours, afternoon	25
The 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV	PhD students, postdocs, senior researchers	2 hours, afternoon	25
Communicating Your Science to Human Beings	PhD students, postdocs, senior researchers	2 hours, afternoon	25

Each session followed the three-phase architecture at the heart of our methodology:

• Pre-training activation. Ambassador onboarding calls with people from each group to surface the real dynamics, followed by a short reflection prompt to participants the week before.
• The session itself. Experiential exercises grounded in the neuroscience of collaboration and the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV. Participants do, then reflect, then commit.
• Post-training reinforcement. A 30-day behavioural sprint for opt-in participants — one Monday habit prompt, one Friday reflection question — plus the IMPROV Reflection and EPIC Leadership e-book and a manager reinforcement guide for leaders.

What the participants told us

The survey was anonymous, gathered immediately after each session, and built around four signals: confidence to apply the learning, likelihood to reach across departments, perceived value of continuing the work, and willingness to recommend it.

Question (1 = low, 7 = high)	Support Team	Network	5 Principles	Science → Humans
Confidence to apply the learning at work	5.2	5.1	5.4	5.5
Likelihood to reach across departments	5.2	4.8	5.2	6.0
Belief that this training is valuable to continue with	5.2	5.7	6.1	6.0
Would recommend to a colleague	10/10	21/22	10/10	2/2
Responses (of approx. 25 in each session)	10	22	10	2

Note: one session closed without the survey being distributed in the room, so its sample is small. Numbers are rounded to one decimal place. Full anonymous response data is available on request.

Three patterns stood out.

The work is seen as worth continuing. Across every session, the highest-scoring question was "I believe this training is valuable to continue with", with a weighted average of 5.7/7. In the 5 Guiding Principles session, the median was 6.5. The experience opened a door rather than closing one.

Confidence to act on Monday is real. An average of 5.2/7 across all sessions said they felt ready to bring the learning into their daily work. People left with one specific behaviour they had committed to in front of their colleagues.

Cross-disciplinary outreach is the slowest needle to move, and the most important. The likelihood-to-reach-out score (5.1/7) was the lowest of the three, which is exactly what we would expect. Reaching across boundaries is a behaviour built over months, not hours. The job of one day is to lower the threshold, and the qualitative responses suggest that is what happened.

In their own words

I lost the fear of initiating conversations with people I haven't met before. — Researcher, Leveraging Your Network

The session made me less shy with my colleagues. — Support team member, Team Development for Support Staff

I let go of feeling awkward during the session. — Researcher, The 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV

I'm more courageous than I believe. — Researcher, The 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV

That I am more interested in my colleagues' well-being as well as mine. — Support team member, Team Development for Support Staff

It is enjoyable to engage with people. — Researcher, Leveraging Your Network

What they committed to on Monday

Every participant left with one specific behaviour they would do differently the following week. The pattern across the answers is what we would hope for in a community asked to build bridges across disciplines:

• Ask one question or give one piece of input during the next team meeting.
• Engage with someone new at the coffee machine.
• Reply "Yes, and" to the first idea someone mentions.
• Dedicate more words and time to the success achieved by team members.
• Apply for the job I saw and didn't think I would get.

References

The two leads who commissioned the programme, Kali Lamont and Betina Helle Schytte, are happy to speak with peers considering similar work — about the planning process, the day itself, and what they have observed in the weeks since. We are glad to make an introduction.

Bring this to your institute or organisation

A department day, a faculty seminar or an organisational offsite faces a recognisable version of the same question BRIGHT at DTU was working with: how to use a shared moment in time to shift how people work together for the months that follow. The methodology and the architecture that worked at BRIGHT at DTU transfer directly — a dedicated session for the support team alongside the researcher sessions, the three phases that turn a day into lasting behaviour, and experiential work that people feel rather than sit through.

Source: anonymous post-session feedback collected on 7 May 2026 across the four sessions. 44 of approximately 100 participants completed the survey. One session closed without the survey being shared, so its sample is small (n=2), included here for completeness.