The mission of PIPE is to support collaboration across campuses at the University of Southern Denmark but also to enhance relations with professional communities, institutions and businesses as well as to strengthen international research contacts and projects.
PIPE – Professional Interaction and Practice – unites three different research groups at the University of Southern Denmark: the SOPRACON group in Odense, the INTEK group in Kolding and the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at the Sønderborg campus. Thus, PIPE spans across the Department of Language and Communication in Odense (ISK) and the Department of Design and Communication in Kolding and Sønderborg (IDK).
The reason why these particular groups have joined forces in the PIPE network is the fact that they are all studying human interaction as particular professional practices.
PIPE researchers have a long tradition in studying professional expertise and interactional practices across a wide variety of settings and disciplines, professions and workplaces, as e.g. education; health care; social service; business; human robot interaction, transport and safety.
These studies of interactions in different environments have given significant results with strong relevance for practitioners.
Findings often concern professional skills and their development; the constitution of institutional and professional identities; learning and instruction as social practice; distinctions between institutional and non-institutional interaction; strategies for managing communicative impairments of various sorts; mobility and safety; technologies and change in the workplace; welfare and co-participation; and innovation through participation.
PIPE has been funded as a strategic network by the Faculty of the Humanities at University of Southern Denmark for a 3-year period (2016-2019).
