Open letter: No real opportunity for staff to object to management's decision to phase out iNANO

This is an opinion piece, the views expressed in the column are the writers’ own.

To the faculty management of the Faculty of Natural Sciences

When it was announced on 6 May that the faculty management at the Faculty of Natural Sciences had decided to initiate a process with the stated goal of closing iNANO as an independent administrative unit, it came as a shock to almost everyone associated with iNANO. The decision was made without any prior involvement of iNANO staff, students or associates and is based on a recommendation made by a closed committee.

Many of us have been deeply involved in the establishment and development of iNANO for over two decades, and the absence of dialogue and involvement in such a crucial decision is cause for serious concern and confusion.

Although the consultation material presents the decision as not yet formally adopted, it’s only the process of phasing out that has been submitted for consultation – not the question of whether iNANO should be closed down as an administrative unit. In other words, there is no real opportunity to object to the upcoming decision to phase out, but only to how it will be implemented. This gives the impression that the decision has in fact already been made and that the consultation process is only intended to legitimise an organisational restructuring that the affected research community has had no opportunity to influence. Many of us have been deeply involved in the establishment and development of iNANO for over two decades, and the absence of dialogue and involvement in such a crucial decision is cause for serious concern and confusion.

Lack of a comprehensive plan

One of the main issues in the consultation material draft that causes uncertainty among staff and affiliates is the absence of an overall plan for how iNANO's functions and role will continue after the discontinuation. According to the consultation material, the only element explicitly being continued is the nanoscience degree programme, which is to be transferred to the Department of Chemistry. The iNANO PhD programme is proposed to be discontinued, and the material states that responsibility for the activities currently handled and coordinated by iNANO will in future be placed decentrally with the individual departments. It is stated that the academic staff members’ teaching and research portfolios will remain largely unchanged. However, there is no proposal for an overall management structure, organisational framework or funding model for the interdisciplinary activities that constitute a significant part of iNANO’s work – including Friday seminars, student seminars, annual meetings, and other joint events and initiatives. It’s also not clear which role the secretariat is expected to play in the future.  Transferring responsibility to individual departments without overarching coordination entails a significant risk that the coherent framework for interdisciplinary research and knowledge sharing at iNANO will fall apart. Without a strategic effort to preserve the structures that have created academic coherence and visibility over two decades, iNANO as a unified research unit will gradually lose its function and identity - and therefore also the national and international visibility and value of the iNANO brand.

Decision should be based on professional judgement

Neither the consultation nor the basis for decision-making addresses the strategic value of the iNANO brand for Aarhus University. In our opinion, iNANO is one of the university's most distinctive and unique initiatives with a strong national and international profile in nanoscience. This is exactly why an independent assessment of the brand's value to Aarhus University should be included before deciding whether it should be phased out or further developed.

The most remarkable thing about the decision is that it was made without any prior professional assessment of the value iNANO has created and continues to create. Unlike the faculty’s other departments, iNANO has not been subject to a recent evaluation – despite the fact that it effectively functions as a department-like centre. In the most recent international evaluation in 2019, iNANO was rated very positively and the recommendation was explicitly to further develop the centre. If you look at some of the initiatives that have emerged from iNANO since 2019, they include the major new Novo Nordisk Foundation-funded CO₂ Centre CORC, which brings together researchers from both Nat and Tech. In addition, during this period, iNANO researchers have been leaders of five DNRF centres (two of which have been established since 2019), three Challenge Centres funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (two of which are new), and a number of other new grants, such as Villum Investigators, Lundbeck Collaborative Grants and large ERC grants. These grants have provided the basis for new research areas with high societal relevance, including CO₂ reduction, plastic degradation, nanomedicine, battery materials and particles in the atmosphere. Furthermore, iNANO has focused heavily on industry collaboration and innovation from the start, and iNANO researchers have developed the ODIN concept, Brainnovation Day and innovation courses, among other things.  

Unclear how existing research communities and networks will continue

The proposed initiative, "iHub", presented by management as a replacement for iNANO, is currently very sparsely described. The management states that the aim is to strengthen interdisciplinarity, innovation and industry collaboration at faculty level. However, it’s unclear how this initiative will continue or integrate the research environments, infrastructures and networks that currently make up iNANO. It’s difficult to see how closing down the university's most established interdisciplinary centre can support the goal of promoting interdisciplinary research and education.

Development, not phasing out

We agree that the financial and organisational model for iNANO has been complex. This is partly due to the different degrees of affiliation: a core group of iNANO staff ("small"), researchers physically located in the iNANO building ("medium") and all researchers with a professional affiliation to iNANO ("large"). This multi-layered structure has created challenges when it comes to distributing grant income, clarifying credit for research results and defining the basis for evaluation. While this presents structural challenges, it should not be decisive in assessing iNANO's future role. Despite these structural conditions, iNANO has served as a catalyst for outstanding research, professional innovation, and the successful attraction of substantial external funding since its establishment.

Interdisciplinary research is difficult to organise, but iNANO has shown that it can be done with great success. We therefore believe that iNANO should be developed further instead of being phased out.

On behalf of

• Professor Kurt V. Gothelf, Department of Chemistry and iNANO
• Professor Jørgen Kjems, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and iNANO
• Professor Daniel Otzen,Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and iNANO
• Professor Niels Chr. Nielsen, Department of Chemistry and iNANO
• Professor Liv Hornekær, Department of Physics and Astronomy and iNANO
• Professor Alexander N. Zelikin, Department of Chemistry and iNANO
• Professor Jan Skov Pedersen, Department of Chemistry and iNANO
• Professor Thomas Vorup-Jensen, Department of Biomedicine and iNANO
• Professor Duncan Sutherland, iNANO

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Cecillia Jensen