We asked: "What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?" and "What is the most remarkable thing that has happened in society in general in 2015?", while the final question was "2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?"

The researchers' replies clearly indicate that 2015 is not just a dozen months that will soon be difficult to distinguish from previous years. This is especially true of the events that have taken place outside the university.

AU in 2015

However, we start our review internally at AU, where all seven researchers can point to progression in their field, regardless of whether this involves publishing the fifth and final volume of a major work on the Danish school through the ages; or statistical comparisons that can help to ensure a higher detection percentage in narcotics cases; or efforts to document climate changes through what is thus far two decades at a research station in the Arctic.

The rest of the world in 2015

On the other hand, the majority of them present a far less optimistic picture when they look back on events in society in general. The researchers point in particular to the many people fleeing from war who are looking towards Europe.

Where there is fear…

With regard to the feeling of fear, they write of the legitimate fear of Islamic terrorism, which they also fear will reinforce the tendency to see the political community as a closed club, and of politicians whose behaviour demonstrates a powerlessness, and national and European democracies that no longer function.

… and where there is hope

But the researchers also have hope for the new year. Hope that we in Europe will be able to see beyond our fear so that we can think, discuss and act together to find sustainable solutions to problems that can only be resolved in a community with mutual obligations. 

Professor with special responsibilities (MSO) Mikkel Thorup History of Ideas, Department of Culture and Society. Mikkel Thorup has just published his book ”Statens idéhistorie – magt, vold og politik” (The History of Ideas of the State - Power, Violence and Politics), Aarhus University Press.

Hope and anxiety for 2016 are what will replace representative democracy

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

The most important thing for the history of ideas this year has been that the expansion we have seen in later years has continued and that it has institutionalised itself. We have seen new journals and centres and, not least, Chinese, Russian, Latin American and African history of ideas are making strong progress. The history of ideas has always been a small subject and is rarely an independent subject or department, so this expansion is important. There was a major period of expansion and development in the 1960s and 1970s, and 2015 has confirmed that we are in a new period of enormous methodological development and institutionalisation. Very exciting to be a part of.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

I would like to say the popular mobilisation to help refugees. We have spent decades talking about civil society and politicians have tried to instrumentalise it as an organisation to help the welfare state after cutbacks. Then suddenly the population reacts with a massive aid effort across the whole of Europe. Not because the politicians ask us to, but because it is clear for everyone – as it also was during the financial crisis – that the Danish and European system does not function and is unable to deal with the most important challenges.

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

In continuation of the answer above, I both hope for and fear the conclusion and not least its consequences, namely that the national and European democracy no longer functions. It seems fair to say that this is a conclusion which national and European elites have reached. Just think of the former Italian technocrat prime minister Mario Monti, who believed that the debt crisis was due to the fact that the political system had been too close to the population. That is to say that it had listened to what the people thought. But there are signs such as the far right movements and parties and perhaps also the election of the leftist Greek Syriza party, the Spanish Podemos and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, that the scepticism towards democracy is becoming more general and that the time of representative democracy is viewed as being over. Either because it is too democratic, as the elite believes, or because it is not democratic enough, as many others think. The hope and fear for 2016 is the question of what will end up replacing the representative democracy.

PhD student Louise Stride Nielsen Section of Forensic Chemistry, Department of Forensic Medicine

Statistical comparisons can be an important part of police investigations

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

Together with the Bioinformatics Research Centre, I have been working to optimise methods for how we statistically compare impurity profiles of cocaine or amphetamines. Impurities profiles consist of a number of by-products from the production of the narcotic substance, which are unique for each production. By comparing these impurity profiles we can thus find out whether different seizures come from the same production. The new methods for statistical comparison make comparisons even more precise and useful for police investigations.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

Within the natural sciences the discovery of a possible new treatment of cancer is the most significant in my opinion. Danish researchers are the ones who have made the discovery. What is special about this is that during a study to find a vaccine against malaria in pregnant women, they found a protein in the malaria parasite which binds it to the same sugar structure that we see in cancer. This means it should be possible to use this protein to bind to the cancer cells and to transport an agent against cancer into the cells.

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

Next year I will begin a new project in collaboration with the Danish police on strategic comparison. We will routinely analyse the impurity profiles in seized cocaine and amphetamines and then use the new optimised statistical methods to compare the impurity profiles in an attempt to find new links between the seizures. If we can prove that there is a correlation between different narcotics cases, this can lead to the exposure of the dealers who are sitting and controlling things, of the geographical area in which they operate and of the rate that they send the drugs onto the market. All of this is information that the police have so far had to uncover using intelligence activities such as wiretaps and surveillance. Of course I hope that numerous correlations between seizures will be uncovered and that this can lead the police a step closer to a clarification of one or more cases.

Professor Ning de Coninck-Smith Department of Education This year Ning de Coninck-Smith and her co-authors have completed the five volume work “Dansk skolehistorie. Hverdag, vilkår og visioner gennem 500 år” (Schools in Denmark: A History of Everyday Life, Conditions, and Visions over 500 Years, Aarhus University Press

In the long history of the school in Denmark I cannot remember quite like it

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

Completing the fifth volume of the work on Danish school history, which is about the time from 1970 to the present day. That it has even been possible to write about such a controversial period of Danish school history – right up to our own time – is a great achievement in my opinion.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

Of course the school is a central institution in society, but I don't think anyone could have predicted the debate that’s taken place in the wake of the reform. Just how personal and unpleasant it has been, and how difficult it is for ordinary parents and teachers to make head or tail of it all... and how unfortunate the whole process surrounding the reform has been, what with mixing up the reorganisation of teachers' working hours and a reform which changes the way the primary and lower secondary school has been organised since some time in the 1980s. I cannot remember anything quite like it in the long history of the school, even though there have been many debates along the way, but not quite with the same characteristic of personal clashes – at least as far as I can assess things looking back over many years. There was for example a big debate about the abolition of caning in 1967, and also about the extension of compulsory schooling from seven to nine years in 1972.

For 2016, what worries you - and what do you hope to see?

I am worried that the debate will continue to have little constructive character and that the combatants will not get any closer to one another – but on the other hand, debate and discussion and disagreements are also important for making progress, so I hope the discussion does not end here.

Associate Professor Ulla Kidmose Food Science, Department of Food Science

Seeing the research you deliver being used in society gives you a good feeling

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

In 2015 we completed a larger research project with the title MAXVEG in which I have been project manager, which has been supported by The Danish Council for Strategic Research. We have examined how we can get more people to eat healthy cabbage and root vegetables, though these can at the same time taste very bitter. We have examined the health effect of a high intake of cabbage and root vegetables in an interventional study with type 2 diabetes patients. We have also examined the bitter taste as a barrier for eating more cabbage by serving it for Danish and French consumers. The research project has resulted in several scientific articles as well as a lot of media coverage. It has felt good to be project manager on this kind of project from start to finish with its many very different research-related aspects.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

I choose to stay in the same area, so here I would point to the fact that MAXVEG has made a considerable contribution towards focusing on the many benefits of introducing more cabbage and root vegetables into our daily diet. Both the media and the gastronomic world regularly mention how healthy it is to eat cabbage and root vegetables and the positive effects this has on your health. Seeing the research you deliver being used in society gives you a good feeling.  

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

I very much hope that we are able to maintain funding for research in the field of food science, taste and health in the coming years, even though the financing of this type of research project is under increased pressure due to the reduction in research funding. I fear that the high research quality will be reduced as a result of less research funding and increased competition.

PhD student Jesper Bruun Mosbacher Department of Bioscience. Jesper Bruun Mosbacher has spent four months of 2015 at the Arctic Research Centre in Zackenberg in Northeast Greenland. He will be going back there again in 2016.

Escalation and meltdown are worrying

– the hope is insight into how to act wisely together

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

We are currently experiencing powerful changes in the Arctic region as a result of climate change. In order to document and understand these changes, we have to take a long-term perspective, and this means we have to go out and take the same measurements each day, week and month. Year-after-year. This year Aarhus University has celebrated twenty years of operating a High Arctic ecosystem monitoring programme in an area that is untouched by humans, but which is experiencing powerful changes. This is a unique presentation that means we are right up at the top of the world elite when it comes to documenting and investigating climate change in the Arctic.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

I think that there has been a major shift in our attitudes and rhetoric about immigrants and refugees this year. Denmark has previously been known as an open and positive country, so I have been very surprised about the number of Danes who have a negative attitude toward refugees such as those who have fled the war in Syria.

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

With the recent terrorist attacks in Paris in the back of my mind, what I fear is of course an escalation of terrorism, but also of the war against terrorism. I fear that Islam will be equated with terrorism, which will simply create a greater divide in our society. Of course I hope that the opposite happens, that is that the Danes and Europe as a whole join together and in solidarity deescalate conflicts and find an answer to the refugee problem. But it already starts with the fact that we must alter our rhetoric, attitudes and openness.

Within my academic field I hope that we will draw even more attention to climate change and that the politicians at COP 21 in Paris reach an agreement that will be binding at the global level, so we can actively begin the work of leaving a better planet for the next generations.

Postdoc Louise Halleskov Storgaard Department of Law

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

As a researcher in EU law and human rights, the most remarkable is undoubtedly the refugee crisis that Denmark and all other EU countries are currently facing. Such a large number of asylum seekers and migrants who continue to cross its external borders challenge not only EU regulations regulating the area (especially the Dublin Regulation and the Schengen Agreement), but also absolutely basic principles of EU law on free movement, solidarity and human rights.

In fact, since 2010 it has been clear for both EU countries and all those who are interested in these areas that the existing rules are not sufficient in so far as they neither ensure a distribution of asylum seekers that is based on solidarity or is effective, and nor do they guarantee compliance with the human rights of asylum seekers. If there is anything positive to be found in the refugee crisis, it is that its magnitude is now such that the EU countries will be forced to directly respond to these problems and to negotiate durable solutions for them.

It is also relevant to mention the Danish referendum on the justice opt-out, as it has significant practical importance for both the Danish police and Danish citizens and companies, in that Denmark would in future be able to participate in the EU's justice and home affairs collaboration with a yes (the referendum resulted in a no to abolishing the opt-out, ed.).

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

Here I will again say the EU refugee crisis. It is not only a major challenge for the EU and human rights regulations, which is my area of research, but also a huge social challenge for Denmark and the rest of Europe. In general terms this means that all EU countries now find themselves in the very difficult situation of having to find solution models that take into account the union itself, national special interests and the interests of the people who have fled from war and persecution in their native countries.

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

I will take the liberty of only giving a constructive response. My great hope is that the EU member states will in 2016, to a higher degree than so far in this long-term refugee crisis, demonstrate willingness to mutual solidarity and to commit themselves to effective common solutions, rather than primarily focusing on national interests. Irrespective of the fact that national interests can be both real and legitimate, this is a European problem that can only be solved with a joint European effort.

In addition, I very much hope that there was a yes in the 3 December referendum, so that Denmark can in 2016 participate on an equal footing with other countries in the most important areas of EU's justice policy.

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Professor with special responsibilities (MSO) Per Mouritsen The Department of Political Science Per Mouritsen has just published the book "En plads i verden – Det moderne medborgerskab” (A Place in the World – Modern Citizenship), Gyldendal.

It is undemocratic, a kind of modern tyranny

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within your field in 2015?

That the government with the support from the Social Democratic Party has reintroduced the more difficult test in Danish 3 as a requirement in order to obtain Danish citizenship, the same level required to obtain authorisation as a medical doctor or nurse. That tells you something about the level of difficulty. The majority of non-Western immigrants without an academic background will never be able to become citizens. So they now belong to what is now even faster growing group of permanent residents, approximately six per cent, who do not have the right to use their vote to influence the laws they themselves must live under. It is undemocratic, a kind of modern tyranny. It must also be expected to reduce the incentive for integration and development of a positive affiliation towards Denmark, which politicians otherwise wish to promote with the institution of citizenship.

What is the most remarkable thing that has happened within society in 2015?

It is the refugee catastrophe, which has once and for all illustrated the importance for all people of what the political thinker Hannah Arendt called "a place in the world"; a safe place, where you have the right of freedom and well-being and where you can act with consequence together with others as a person and a citizen, for example by being able to take a job and to vote in elections. The catastrophe demonstrates that citizenship understood as membership of a state (citizenship, residence permit) is an exclusive benefit which you only enjoy by virtue of the fact that others are excluded from the same benefits. There is a moral tension between the liberal ideals of equality and freedom as they are expressed in citizenship and, on the other hand, the exclusion of refugees and immigrants which the social citizenship in the welfare state in particular apparently presupposes, both financially and in relation to solidarity. Human rights only have consequences if you are born in the right place, or manage to illegally enter the world's comfort zones.  

For 2016, what worries you – and what do you hope to see?

I fear that the legitimate fear of Islamic terrorism will reinforce the tendency to see the political community as a closed club, and that this will lead us to give up hope of integrating the many millions – of not only Muslims – for whom religion is still important. I hope we can develop a more inclusive and pluralistic language about what it means to be a good citizen, which is more about what you do and will rather than what you are.

Translated by Peter Lambourne