How can we have solidarity at a big department?

In 2011, six smaller departments merged to become what is today the Department of Biomedicine with 450 employees spread across six buildings. But how do can you maintain a feeling of solidarity when you no longer fetch your coffee from the same machine or eat in the same lunch room? Part of the recipe is an extended lunch break once a month with the added bonus of free sandwiches and (not least) informative presentations by colleagues.

Anja P. Einholm (left) and Camilla Gustafsen were not colleagues before the department merger in 2011, as they were employed at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. Both lacked insight into the work that their colleagues at the new, larger department were doing. They therefore joined forces with Mark Denham and took the initiative to hold the monthly department seminars, where they encourage one of their colleagues to talk about his or her research. Photo: Jepser Rais

29 January 2016 by Marie Groth Andersen

Professor Søren Paludan is readying his PowerPoint presentation entitled 'Recognition of herpes virus by the innate immune system’. All the while, his colleagues from the Department of Biomedicine are filling the hundred seats in the auditorium – and emptying the plates of sandwiches. The first department seminar of 2016 has started.

Department seminars at Biomedicine

- Take place on the first Tuesday of the month in the lunch break from 12:00 - 13:00.

- The speakers are the department's own researchers, who speak about current research projects and methods.

- The department provides a sandwich and water at the seminar.

Since March last year, three junior researchers from the Department of Biomedicine – Assistant Professor Camilla Gustafsen, Associate Professor Anja P. Einholm and Group Leader Mark Denham – have organised a monthly one-hour lunch seminar for their colleagues. The background for the seminars can be found in the department mergers back in 2011, where six smaller departments became the current Department of Biomedicine. Despite the merger, employees still sat in six different buildings around the University Park in Aarhus, and they lacked a forum where they could bring colleagues together, says Camilla Gustafsen.

"It can be difficult to feel that you’re a department, when you’re spread out in different buildings."

What can we do about it?

That they were the three people who ended up organising the department seminars began as a bit of coincidence.

"The idea for the seminars came up at a network meeting for postdocs at the beginning of last year that we were all at. By chance a discussion began about what could be done to bring people at the department together more. Department Head Thomas G. Jensen quickly took on the idea and asked us to go on with it. And that’s what we did," says Anja P. Einholm.

But she thinks it is perhaps natural enough that the idea came from the department's junior researchers.

"The older researchers probably know each other a little better than we do. So we maybe have more of a need to establish contact with our colleagues."

Collegial support

The three organisers began by planning the seminars for the rest of the year. They have been so well supported that they did not hesitate to plan the seminars for 2016 as well. So the dates and speakers for 2016 are already in place. Not only are their colleagues ready to sit in the audience in the auditorium, they are also ready to stand behind the rostrum, say Camilla Gustafsen and Anja P. Einholm.

"There are typically around 70 colleagues at each seminar. Today’s seminar is particularly well-attended with around 100 participants. Last year we only had one of the speakers we invited say no because he didn't want to, while another couldn’t make it on the day in question. Everyone else has said yes when asked to give a presentation. That’s really good when you think about the work involved in preparing a forty-five minute presentation. But people want to do it."

What are people working on?

The presentations have been very varied. Some speakers focus on the method they use in their research, while others talk about the results of their research projects. Camilla Gustafsen and Anja P. Einholm think it’s useful to hear what colleagues are working on:

"It helps let people know who they can go to at the department to find help in different situations. It’s also always interesting and inspiring to hear the questions that people ask themselves – and how they try to answer them in their research," says Camilla Gustafsen.

"Exactly, which provides inspiration for new ways of thinking," adds Anja P. Einholm.

In the auditorium, Søren Paludan is finishing his presentation. But several of his colleagues want to find out a little more about the project and method, before letting him go.

Translated by Peter Lambourne