Are we moving or not?

You’ll be moving in three to five years’ time. That was what staff at several departments of Science and Technology were told when the academic development process was announced. Two years and three months later they still don’t know when they’ll be moving, and in fact they’re even starting to doubt whether they’ll be moving at all.

[Translate to English:] Både lektor Carl-Otto Ottosen, forsøgsmedarbejder og gartner Ruth Nielsen og postdoc Morten Rahr Clausen fra Institut for Fødevarer i Årslev er godt tilfredse med både faciliteter og forskningsmiljøet på Fyn og er derfor ikke begejstrede for planerne om at flytte mange af instituttets medarbejdere til Aarhus. Fotos: Lise Balsby og Helle Kjærsgaard Sørensen
[Translate to English:] Ruth Nielsen
[Translate to English:] Morten Rahr Clausen

“We don’t actually know what’s going to happen. There are plenty of visions but no plans.” That’s how the situation facing staff in Flakkebjerg is described by Johannes Ravn Jørgensen, who is an associate professor at the Department of Agroecology as well as being the staff’s union representative. And they aren’t the only ones. Because staff in Roskilde, Årslev, Kalø and Silkeborg have also been warned that they will be moving soon.

In Flakkebjerg people don’t know what to think, but the majority of the staff are dubious about the plans, says Ravn Jørgensen, who can’t really see the advantage of moving an efficient research environment to Aarhus.

“The problem is that we’ve got such excellent facilities here. There’s nothing like it in Aarhus or in fact many other places in the world. We’ve got greenhouses, climate chambers, laboratories, semi-fields and areas of land that would cost a fortune to move. The facilities we’ve got here attract a great deal of external funding and funding from the business community, and I’m worried that we’ll lose this funding if we move.”

Senior researcher Per L. Gregersen is the union representative for staff at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in Flakkebjerg. He is not convinced that the move will actually lead to increased collaboration with new research environments.

“Imagining that Aarhus is the centre of the universe is a provincial way of thinking. We already collaborate with people all over Denmark and abroad. Of course we’d be closer to other departments if we were actually based in Aarhus, which would open up new collaboration options. But the biggest advantage of moving to Aarhus is that it would make it easier to attract students and PhD scholars.”

What about the technical and administrative staff?

The staff at the Department of Food Science in Årslev on the island of Funen are also worried. According to the plans that have already been announced, the academic staff are going to be moved to Aarhus.

“Our geographical location doesn’t mean much. I already collaborate both internationally and nationally alongside the Universities of Southern Denmark and Copenhagen, and I go to Aarhus a lot. I don’t think I’m going to meet any more people or collaborate any more just because my office gets moved to Aarhus. The island of Funen is right in the middle of Denmark, after all,” says Carl-Otto Ottosen, an associate professor at the Department of Food Science.

His main concern is the research facilities, and not least the support of the technical and administrative staff.

“We’ve got excellent environments and facilities here. The move will cost a lot of resources in terms of both working hours and equipment, and I’m not sure there’s any advantage. It’s not easy to do this kind of thing, and I’m not convinced these plans have been thought through carefully enough,” he says. And he continues:

“I’m also worried that our technical and administrative staff might not be coming with us to Aarhus, and we can’t do without them. I’m delighted to have the support of a stable team of technical and administrative staff, and enjoy a relationship with them that is based on trust. I’m afraid we’ll lose that. They help to ensure a sense of continuity in relation to our PhD scholars because they help to supervise them, and we can’t do large-scale trials without them.”

Should the plans be reconsidered?

One of the members of the technical and administrative staff with whom Carl-Otto Ottosen works is Ruth Nielsen, an experimental assistant and gardener. She also enjoys the close teamwork between the academic and technical and administrative staff in Årslev.

“It’s a win-win situation because we share our expertise. We discuss the experiments and meet in the cafeteria, and any problems can be solved quickly thanks to the close contact that we enjoy. This benefits our research, and ultimately it benefits our results as well.”

Nielsen points out that the decision to move the department from Årslev to Aarhus was made four to five years ago.

“It’s vital that the management review the decision to move. When the decision was made, it was definitely the right call. There were huge plans to gather the whole of AU in one place, and the financial situation was rosy. These days the money is pretty tight, and it would be a shame to hang on to a decision just for the sake of hanging on to it, instead of basing it on objective reasoning. We risk moving to a new location with poorer facilities than we have at present – there might not be enough money to build up the great facilities we already have here in Årslev.”

Family life the biggest factor

The move may also have serious consequences in terms of the family lives of staff in both Flakkebjerg and Årslev, because they will have to start commuting much further to get to work. One of the people wondering about this particular issue is Morten Rahr Clausen, who is a postdoc scholar at the Department of Food Science.

“I can’t see myself moving to Aarhus. I’ve got a family and a house here on Funen, and my kids go to school here. I’m not prepared to change this, nor am I prepared to commute a long way to work every day for the rest of my life. This might not be the kind of thing you expect a dedicated researcher to say, but for me my family is the most important thing at stake here,” he explains.

Academically speaking, he does appreciate the advantage of gathering everything in Aarhus.

“It will definitely be an advantage to work across the boundaries that divide our departments and subjects,” he says. But he adds that this will inevitably have consequences for the good environment that has been built up in Årslev.

“We’ve got a great environment here and we’re a team. We complement each other. We’ve got lots of different skills, and we work with loads of external partners and aren’t limited by geographical factors. I’m sure this will all die out if we move.”

Is it going to happen?

Staff at the Department of Environmental Science in Roskilde are starting to doubt whether the move is going to happen at all, explains senior researcher and union representative Anders Branth Pedersen.

“The staff want to know more, and we’re starting to doubt whether it will happen. So far we’ve been told that we’ll be moving within three to five years, and we were told the same thing two years ago.”

Opinions differ among the staff in Roskilde. Some people think it would be a practical advantage to move closer to Copenhagen, especially people who live east of Roskilde. Anders Branth Pedersen is one of them, and he also thinks the move will result in some academic advantages.

“I think it could be an advantage in terms of our collaboration with ministries, in connection with international events, and when it comes to attracting international researchers. But I think the main advantage of being closer to Copenhagen is that we can attract more students to the programmes we’re developing at present. It’s true that some people think it would be an advantage to stay in Risø. There are arguments both for and against moving, so the staff don’t all agree. The one thing they DO agree about is that they’d like the whole thing to be settled soon.”

Not worried

The staff in Kalø don’t expect to be moving any time soon either, explains Peter Wind, who is a member of the technical and administrative staff and a union representative at the Department of Bioscience.

“We’re not worried. I don’t think anything will be happening for a while because the dean has just announced that Science and Technology has to save DKK 20 million on the budget for equipment and maintenance. And as far as I’m aware there are no concrete plans to move the staff at Bioscience in Kalø and Silkeborg into premises in Aarhus in the foreseeable future. So no, I don’t think my colleagues think much about the issue at all.”


Dean calls for patience

The Dean for Science and Technology, Brian Bech Nielsen, cannot yet unveil any more concrete information about the moves.

“I understand completely that all the staff affected at ST want clear information as soon as possible. The problem is that ST’s removal plans are part of the overall development plans for the whole university, and at the moment we’re working very hard to ensure that the entire jigsaw puzzle falls into place. So I hope everyone will be patient. As soon as the overall plan is ready, the staff at ST will be informed by me or the next dean,” writes Brian Bech Nielsen in a mail to Omnibus.

The newspaper has been unable to discover the current status of the removal plans in time for this edition. We will be monitoring developments.