Cross-disciplinary focus areas for research: deadline extended

The faculty management team has decided to extend the process involved in identifying potential cross-disciplinary focus areas for research at the faculty. This will allow more ideas and proposals to be presented.

The original deadline for submitting proposals for research focus areas was the start of October 2015, with initial discussions in the Academic Council taking place at the end of the same month. The new deadline for ideas is the start of 2016.

Dean Johnny Laursen proposed this extension of the deadline after a meeting in the Academic Council, who said they thought more time was needed in the initial phase to identify and submit ideas for research focus areas. The faculty management team agreed with the dean that the deadline should be extended.

“The faculty is of course interested in allowing enough time for everyone to submit proposals for cross-faculty focus areas,” explains Laursen.

“We never wanted to push this process through too fast, so we’re happy to listen to the views expressed by some members of the Academic Council. We now propose a longer process, resulting in final identification of focus areas in the summer of 2016,” he says.

The framework and process involved in the research focus areas, which will cover a variety of subjects, schools or faculties, will be discussed by the faculty management team and the Academic Council this autumn. The format and structure of the focus areas are expected to be finalised during the autumn. And as soon as the process and framework have been identified, academic staff at the faculty’s schools and CUDiM will be informed.

The structure of the research and research committees at the faculty’s schools will still be ready in early 2016, as decided in connection with the Arts process.