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This chapter tells the story of the initiation, development (over two decades) and collective contribution of the Copenhagen Forum since its foundation in 1996. This Forum comprises a grouping of teachers and directors of masters-level public administrative programmes (notably the MPA) from different academic institutions across Northern Europe. Each year a workshop is convened where a series of papers are presented by the participants, and from which this volume, and a number of other related publications, have been derived.

The chapter is essentially factual and descriptive in style; summarising the story of the Copenhagen Forum so far; doing so under the following five headings – ‘overview’, ‘origins’, ‘odyssey’, ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’.

The chapter is particularly oriented towards teachers of public administration and by focusing on the pedagogical aspects of the public management programmes that they are responsible for delivering, provides insights, guidance and suggestions from experience to help them develop their practice.

The aim is to provide readers with an appreciation of the context from which the inspiration for this volume, and the individual contributions, derive. It is a context that has been all about a shared fascination with, and collective commitment to, the advancement of learning and development among practicing public managers.

The paper analyses the development of LIS research in Denmark since 1985, when research became one of the main activities of the Royal School of Library and Information Science (RSLIS) along with education and continuing education. The paper outlines the background for the development of the School from a professional school to a university institution and the political, economic, professional and other conditions for this framework. The initiatives taken and the activities realised during the years are evaluated, especially those with relevance to international co‐operation.

The Baroness Gardner of Parkes, the United Kingdom Representative on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, is someone well used to serving on committees and has a substantial record of working in womens fields. She was born near Sydney, Australia in a large family in which public service was, regarded as an enjoyable duty. After completing her training as a dental surgeon, she moved to London where her three daughters were born. Lady Gardner is a Justice of the Peace and has been Chairman of the British Section of the European Union of Women, and a member of the Advisory Committee on Womens Employment in the UK. Her appointment to the Status of Womens Committee was made early in 1982.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the anatomy of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) that try to manage corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the supply chain.

The data used for analysis stem from a large‐scale survey of 1,071 Danish SMEs carried out in 2005.

It is concluded that CSR activities directed towards the supply chains still remain the privilege of a small group of SMEs with quite advanced CSR systems.

The survey was not specifically designed for this article. Moreover, only Danish SMEs participated in the survey. Whether the evidence from Denmark can be generalised to cover SMEs in other countries is left to determine.

The results indicate that there may be a need for more differentiated initiatives to promote CSR that will enable smaller enterprises to address CSR issues in the supply chain. Thus far, CSR has often been associated with large, high‐profile multinationals that have been trying to protect their image and brands from negative press, NGO activism, consumer boycotts and governmental sanctions. Little has been done to examine how SMEs can improve social and environmental conditions in cooperation with suppliers.

This article contributes to the existing body of literature by examining how a number of key SME characteristics affect the management of CSR.

This paper is concerned to show how the Danish political elite interpreted and responded to the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis for the Danish economy. In particular, the paper describes how this interpretive construction focused primarily on three features of the Danish context to the exclusion of other perspectives; the first was an emphasis on the problems of the financial sector, of interest rates and state finances; the second was that Danish productivity increases were falling behind other comparable countries and part of the solution required new strategies towards labour and unemployment benefits; thirdly, the adverse effects of the crisis were causing an increase in government expenditure and a decline in government revenues which was rapidly becoming unsustainable. As a consequence, the Danish elite fell into the broader interpretation of the crisis embedded in the dominant view within the EU institutions as well as among the international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, that a period of austerity and fiscal consolidation was the required remedy, even though this was likely to be pro-cyclical in its effects. However, the paper shows that alternative data which is more reflective of Denmark’s position in the global economy and the trajectory and form of its growth over the last decade reveals that the interpretation of the Danish elite has been too narrow and neglects the distinctive roots of Denmark’s competitive strengths. Indeed, by responding in the way which they have, the Danish elite is in danger of undermining the very conditions of Denmark’s competitiveness.

By using the UNISIST models this paper argues for the necessity of domain analysis in order to qualify scientific information seeking. The models allow better understanding of communication processes in a scientific domain and they embrace the point that domains are always both unstable over time, and changeable, according to the specific perspective. This understanding is even more important today as numerous digitally generated information tools as well as collaborative and interdisciplinary research are blurring the domain borders. Nevertheless, researchers navigate “intuitively” in “their” specific domains, and UNISIST helps understanding this navigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The UNISIST models are tentatively applied to the domain of art history at three stages, respectively two modern, partially overlapping domains, as well as an outline of an art historical domain anno c1820. The juxtapositions are discussed against the backdrop of, among others, poststructuralist concepts such as “power” and “anti-essentialism”

The juxtapositions affirm the point already surfacing in the different versions of the UNISIST model, that is, structures of communication change over time as well as according to the agents that are charting them. As such, power in a Foucauldian sense is unavoidable in outlining a domain.

The UNISIST models are applied to the domain of art history and the article discusses the instability of a scientific domain as well as, at the same time, the significance of framing a domain; an implication which is often neglected in scientific information seeking.