Researchers
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Briefs
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University of Southern Denmark
From a blank domain to the world’s #1-ranked playground research institute
A new global institute for playground research, carrying the brand of a world-renowned European university. We built it on native WordPress — and within a year, from a domain that didn’t exist before, it ranked first in the world for its field.
#1
worldwide for playground research
508
articles indexed
About the client
University of Southern Denmark
The University of Southern Denmark is one of Denmark’s leading universities, spanning five faculties and campuses across the country from its home in Odense. Founded in 1966, SDU builds its education on research that is deliberately societally relevant — tackling health, welfare and climate challenges head on.
Its Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics is ranked second in the world for sport science (ShanghaiRanking 2025), making it one of the most influential research environments in the field — home to internationally recognised groups in active living, health promotion and exercise science.
The challenge
The University of Southern Denmark was establishing a global academic institute — the recognised home for its field — from nothing: a brand-new domain, in a subject with no single authoritative presence online. There was no audience and no ranking to inherit; everything had to be created, and then earn its place.
The bar was exceptionally high. As an initiative of a world-renowned European university with significant investment in its brand, the site had to read as a true extension of that identity — every font, layout, icon and image to the university’s own standards. And a large, growing body of work — projects, briefs, articles, the people behind them, and news — had to be both genuinely usable for researchers and easy for the world to find. Storing the information is the simple part; presenting it well, and making it discoverable, is the hard part.
Our approach
We designed and built a bespoke website with a custom database at its core, built natively rather than assembled from heavy page-builder tools — which keeps it fast, clean and exactly the kind of site search engines reward.
Four connected collections sit at the heart of it, each linked to the others and to the people behind the work:
- Projects — detailed records, linked to their people, briefs, articles and news.
- Briefs — a bespoke format built for this academic context.
- Articles — academic articles restructured into a clear, searchable format, seeded from the journals.
- News — categorised and tagged for easy browsing.
Because everything is connected, each researcher’s profile automatically gathers the projects, briefs, articles and news they are part of — turning a large archive into something genuinely navigable, and giving every page the depth search engines can rank.
We chose WordPress for reasons beyond performance. WordPress is the common language of academic web — familiar across universities — so the institute’s own staff can confidently maintain the site, adding projects, briefs and articles through one consistent, well-documented editing experience. Being native WordPress rather than a third-party page builder also means a vast base of learning resources and a stable, predictable upgrade path, where page builders tend to change quickly and carry greater update and security risk. The result is future-proofed: easy for the team to run today, and built to last.
Within a year of launch, from a domain that didn’t previously exist, it became the number-one search result in the world for playground research.
What we delivered
Bespoke website built as an extension of the university’s brand
Custom database for projects, briefs, articles and news
Clear, searchable presentation of a large body of research
Researcher profiles that link each person to their work
A fast, lightweight build designed to rank in search
Initial compilation and structuring of research from academic journals
“
We have had Tecology help design and develop ‘data-heavy’ websites that needed a robust and secure back-end, while also looking good and being user-friendly. Tecology has always been able to deliver — and, more importantly, forced us to think a few steps ahead.
Prof. Jasper Schipperijn
— Head of Centre, University of Southern Denmark
“
Tony combines strong technical skills with a genuine ability to not only understand our needs but also see the bigger picture — and translate these into user-friendly features on our website. He listens carefully, asks the right questions, and always aims to find the best possible solution.
Louise Stjerne Madsen
— Web & Communications, University of Southern Denmark
Project details
Outcomes
Global ranking for playground research, within a year#1
Academic articles indexed508
Connected research collections4
Concept to launch5 months
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