On 28–29 August 2025, the Mind the Gap research team gathered in Copenhagen for an internal workshop dedicated to sharing and critically discussing work in progress on the relationship between academic expertise and foreign and security policy-making in Denmark and Norway.

The workshop brought together project members to explore how knowledge travels between research environments, ministries, and the public sphere — and how these connections are shaped by institutional design, geography, and power.

Rasmus Mariager and Anders Dramstad presented new comparative research on the historical development of foreign policy institutes in Denmark and Norway. Their contribution highlighted how ministries have, over time, sought not only to support but also to shape and manage these institutes—revealing distinct national approaches to organising and steering policy-relevant expertise.

Jamie Shea presented work tracing NATO’s evolution as a decision-making arena, with particular attention to when, how, and why external expertise has been invited into alliance deliberations. The presentation sparked discussion about openness, credibility, and the boundaries between insider and outsider knowledge in international security institutions.

Finally, Sten Rynning and Anne Ingemann Johansen presented joint work on the security studies communities in Denmark and Norway. Focusing on patterns of academic impact and public visibility, they explored how factors such as institutional affiliation, proximity to political power, and national knowledge infrastructures shape who gets heard in public debate — and whose expertise travels into policy-making arenas.

Across sessions, discussions returned to a shared set of questions at the heart of the Mind the Gap project: How do small states organise policy-relevant knowledge? What barriers structure access to decision-makers and public platforms? And how do these dynamics shape foreign and security policy outcomes over time?

The workshop marked an important step in developing a shared analytical framework for understanding how Denmark and Norway connect research, expertise, and decision-making — and how these connections can both enable and constrain informed public debate.