Teaching Award goes to AU researcher for the first time
Researcher at the Department of Political Science, Amalie Trangbæk, receives the Danish National Teaching Award 2026 (Undervisningsprisen). She is the first AU researcher to receive the award since it was established in 2020.
The Danish National Teaching Award
Each year, the Ministry of Higher Education and Science awards the Teaching Award to seven members of teaching staff at higher education institutions across Denmark. The award is presented to “inspiring and engaging” members of teaching staff.
The award is worth DKK 500,000, of which DKK 200,000 goes to the recipient personally, and the remaining DKK 300,000 is allocated to the development of teaching activities.
The seven Teaching Awards are distributed among Denmark’s higher education institutions:
- The universities: Two recipients
- The university colleges: Two recipients
- The business academies: One recipient
- Institutions offering higher artistic education programmes: One recipient
- Maritime education institutions: One recipient
Candidates for the Teaching Award are nominated by the leadership teams of the respective higher education institutions.
Winners of the Danish national Teaching Award 2026:
- Amalie Trangbæk, Aarhus University
- Bjarne Schmidt, University of Southern Denmark
- Brian Jørgensen, Design School Kolding
- Gry Segoli, University College Copenhagen
- Lars Plauborg Pedersen, Business Academy Southern Denmark
- Lene Krogstrup Jakobsen, UC Syd
- René Kirk Johansen, MARTEC
Source: Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Digital Affairs (In Danish, ed.)
Amalie Trangbæk, a postdoctoral researcher at AU’s Department of Political Science, is one of seven recipients of the Danish national Teaching Award, which is presented each year by the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Digital Affairs to “inspiring and engaging” members of teaching staff at higher education institutions in Denmark.
The award is worth DKK 500,000, of which DKK 200,000 goes to the recipient personally. The remaining DKK 300,000 is allocated to the development of teaching at the recipient’s institution. The award will be presented on 22 September by Queen Mary and the Minister for Science, Higher Education and Digital Affairs, Christina Egelund.
Amalie Trangbæk receives the award for her teaching in public administration. This is particularly due to her playful and unconventional teaching methods, which include paper fortune tellers and role-playing exercises, according to an Aarhus BSS news article. She has also succeeded in giving students a close-up insight into the realities they are studying. As a lecturer in public administration, she has taken students to ministerial offices in the capital, bringing them face-to-face with the world they are seeking to understand.
This approach to teaching builds on her nearly 400-page PhD thesis, “Life at the Top”, published in 2021. The thesis explored the day-to-day lives of senior civil servants, following eight permanent secretaries closely over a two-year period and drawing on interviews with numerous other senior officials.
This is not the first time Amalie Trangbæk has received an award. In 2025, she was named MA Lecturer of the Year by Political Science students, and in 2023 she was voted Researcher of the Year by her colleagues at the Department of Political Science.
Her first book, Between Power and Ministers: Inside the Civil Service (In Danish, ed.), will be published in November. It is also based on her unique insight into the civil service and draws, among other things, on nearly 90 interviews with senior officials.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Mie Skov Jeppesen.