OPINION: Research leadership: Danish universities and senior researchers can do better!
Opinion
Danish universities should be bolder in promoting research output, and leading researchers (especially professors and senior scientists) should seek international recognition more actively, writes Aliakbar Kamari, associate professor at the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at Aarhus University, based on his experience working within Danish academia for almost a decade.
OPINION: It's time for a clear path to full professorship at Danish universities
Opinion
As a 15-year veteran of the U.S. academic system, having gone through the full trajectory from assistant to associate to full professor at Purdue University and the University of Maryland, I was taken aback upon discovering the promotion structure at Danish universities when I joined Aarhus University last summer. At AU, and indeed across all of Denmark, there's a glaring gap in our academic career trajectory: the lack of a clear path from associate to full professor, writes professor of Computer Science Niklas Elmqvist.
COLUMN: "We shouldn’t be afraid of confrontation, but we shouldn’t be insensitive either"
Opinion
Now we know how enrolment caps will be distributed across the faculties, but there are still many unanswered questions regarding how sector resizing will affect the university. Being in a workplace characterised by uncertainty and change can be challenging. Everyone reacts differently. And our work environment needs to accommodate our different approaches, writes the dean of Arts, Maja Horst, in her management column.
COLUMN: Rector: "We’re facing tough decisions"
Opinion
Like all universities in Denmark, Aarhus University will have to educate fewer young people from 2025. This is a result of the political agreement behind the Master’s reform. AU must reduce its admissions by 545 student places, and 200 of its existing places must be converted to new ones. The senior management team has just decided how the reductions will be distributed across the faculties. Now the faculties have to decide how they will implement these enrolment caps at degree programme level. This is neither an easy nor an enviable task, writes Brian Bech Nielsen in this month’s column by the senior management team.
OPINION: We need clear and transparent guidelines and procedures for handling sexism and abuse
Opinion
A recent report from the research and analysis center VIVE documents that sexism and unwanted sexual behavior are a sad reality for many PhD students at Danish universities. Universities must take responsibility and ensure that there are independent, safe, and trustworthy ways for PhD students to report incidents without fear of reprisals, write PhD student Signe Vogel and PhD student Sofie Abildgaard Jacobsen on behalf of the PhD Association – Health.
OPINION: Vice-dean: We must safeguard the free movement of research – PET’s campaign will not change this
Opinion
We must do everything we can to prevent adversary states gaining access to the research and advice on which the Danish government and parliament base their decisions. But, at the same time, we must safeguard the free movement of research. PET’s campaign will not change this, writes vice-dean Brian Vinter in his reply to an opinion piece published in Omnibus.
OPINION: PET campaign is troubling – Research should be freely disseminated, not protected
Article
Three AU researchers find the latest campaign by PET on “research security” quite troubling, and are also disappointed in seeing that it has received significant support among those with a position of leadership at Danish universities.
Column: What we lose on the stock market we take from operations – don’t we?
Opinion
Can it really be true that Aarhus University had to lay off staff because the stock markets fell? No, because the university’s financial reserves provide a buffer for precisely this kind of uncertainty, thinks Professor Peter Balling, who is a staff representative on the Aarhus University Board. The layoffs were a result of structural deficits, and with timely interventions along the management chain, they could have perhaps been avoided, he writes.
Point of view: When a data scientist runs the DHL Relay Run ...
Opinion
Associate professor Jacob Hesselvig Fredsøe did not only run the DHL Relay Run. Because he's a data scientist, he couldn't resist downloading the times of all participants to find out how Aarhus University performed overall - and even more importantly, how fast you needed to be to get bragging rights over your fellow AU athletes.
COLUMN: How to become a professor at Aarhus University – a student’s guide
Opinion
After 26 years at Aarhus University, Peter Bakker, associate professor of linguistics, offers a complete and first-hand guide to becoming a permanent member of staff at the university – perhaps even to attaining the coveted professor title.
