Forget the notion that programming belongs solely to the engineers. For researchers in the humanities and social sciences, it offers the potential to rethink and reshape research practice itself. This is exactly the kind of deep insight Jacob Gorm Davidsen helps bridge—taking it from the journals and directly into the engine room with the software DOTE. Hear why he believes digital innovation is one of the most powerful ways to make academic insight come alive and become indispensable to society.

How Innovation Makes SSH Research Relevant Again
Jacob Gorm Davidsen has always been fascinated by what happens between people. As a researcher in collaboration and learning within digital contexts, his natural habitat has been the complex, often invisible structures that emerge when humans interact through technology. However, for Jacob, it was no longer enough to observe these phenomena from the sidelines and document his insights in articles and books read only by peers behind university walls. "Our contributions have typically been text-based—articles and books—but particularly in this day and age, it is crucial to create impact in other, often more effective ways," he notes. For Jacob, this was not about abandoning research in favor of business. It was about proving that the knowledge produced by him and his colleagues at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (SSH) possesses a unique value that society craves. They simply need the courage to materialize it. According to Jacob, a shift is underway, especially among younger researchers who see new opportunities to make a significant difference in the world.

DOTE: A Digital Infrastructure
Innovation is frequently associated with hardware: faster chips, better electronic devices, and more capable robots. Jacob, however, has helped develop something different—something that is not about replacing the human element, but about understanding it. The result is DOTE (Distributed Open Transcription Environment). At first glance, it may look like simple transcription software, but beneath the surface lies decades of SSH expertise. While standard software often reduces human speech to flat strings of text, DOTE is designed to capture fine nuances, pauses, and the non-verbal cues that form the core of human interaction—all in accordance with the highest professional standards, including the Jefferson system. This is innovation in its purest SSH form: a tool created by researchers who understand the depth and scope of the problem, designed for a reality where technology alone cannot provide the answers.

Legitimacy Through Application
For many SSH researchers, the word "innovation" can carry connotations of commercialization or sacrificing research integrity to market forces. For Jacob, however, this is exactly where the battle for professional relevance must be fought. "We can talk about innovation within SSH, but if we don't show the world and our colleagues what we can actually contribute, we won't move the needle," he explains. By creating a concrete and directly applicable output like DOTE, Jacob makes the research—and its utility—visible and tangible. It is about breaking away from traditional knowledge production where success is measured solely by citation counts. When a software solution based on humanities methodology is adopted by other researchers and practitioners, it creates a level of legitimacy that no theoretical dissertation can match alone. It proves that SSH research is not a luxury, but a necessity for navigating a complex world.

Better Together: Innovation as a Team Sport
DOTE is not the result of a single idea or person, but of close and sustained collegial collaboration. The original concept came from Paul McIlvenny, who aimed to rethink how researchers handle the transcription and analysis of social interaction. Together, they began exploring the possibilities, and Alexander Stein later became a central part of the technical development. Although they all had experience in software development, the journey of bringing it into a commercial context was something they learned along the way. Today, DOTE has users worldwide, and development continues as a collective project. "Without the collaboration with Paul and Alexander, DOTE would not have become what it is today. It is in the interplay between different perspectives that ideas grow," Jacob emphasizes. In this way, DOTE serves as an example that innovation within SSH is rarely an individual pursuit but rather a team effort. This collective drive makes it possible to work with innovation in a meaningful way that brings research into entirely new contexts.

Daring to Create Your Own Space
The journey of Jacob and his team shows that the path to impact does not require a renunciation of academic integrity. On the contrary, it provides a new kind of freedom. "Being able to create things ourselves has given us a new space," he says, referring to how humanities scholars can now enter arenas previously reserved for computer science. In developing tools like DOTE, SSH researchers are no longer sidelined as passive repositories of knowledge; they are direct co-developers of the future. For Jacob, the path of innovation is also a way to secure resources for the field. "It might not be a billion-dollar quantum microscope we need, but rather frameworks that better allow our knowledge to be put into play," he explains.

A Call to Colleagues
Jacob’s story serves as a clear invitation to his colleagues at AAU: an opportunity to look beyond the next article publication and ask how their insights can make a difference in the world. "You can hardly be a researcher today without being occupied by what is happening around you," he reflects in conclusion. Innovation within the SSH field is the belief that the knowledge we create about people, culture, and society is too important to stay confined within the university. It needs to get out there and live.