Dear all,

It is usually a good time to take stock after the first 100 days, but I have been so incredibly busy learning more about every corner of this amazing faculty that I will do it after six months.

Fortunately, there is a lot to be happy about with regard to both research and education. This is a faculty with many fantastic and inventive colleagues and wonderful students. For me, this solid foundation has been indispensable in the recent months with fierce political winds.

The faculty’s strengths provide a strong basis in relation to the Master’s reform and the changes it brings. In the course of 2024, we must start finding ways to get through the changes in the best possible way in order to remain a strong international teaching- and research-intensive faculty of humanities.

That said, there are some things that do not just change. Claus Holm has been reappointed as the head of DPU. In addition, we have just taken the first steps to advertise the position of vice-dean for education. All in all, part of 2024 will be spent filling positions in the faculty management team, as Marie Vejrup’s term as acting head of the School of Culture and Society also expires in 2024. We will also begin this recruitment process soon.

Furthermore, I am very pleased that we have been able to admit 15 researchers to the promotion programme in 2023, because it is very important to me that we deal with the low number of professors at the faculty. We must be among the very best internationally, and this requires that more people have the opportunity to become professors, and we must also be good at attracting relevant international profiles to our academic environments.

Over the past six months, the faculty has received many generous grants both from EU and at national level. Many of them are characterised by relating to a societal problem where research in the humanities is the way to find new, useful solutions. I am delighted to be heading a faculty where each researcher reaches out and addresses the many problems in the world to which new, innovative solutions need to be found. Of course, this also requires that we internally are ready to support these activities, and in 2024 we will be looking at how to best support the research area in a way that corresponds to how the research is conducted and to the new requirements with regard to dialogue with funders, data management and ethics, among other things.

The faculty is currently not able to offer new degree programmes, which is why we are even more pleased that we have managed to establish a new pilot project with an educational-psychological counselling track on the Master’s degree programme in educational psychology. In the same vein, the university has also managed to bring together committed researchers in a national research centre for educational-psychological counselling research. I am really pleased that the faculty’s researchers are so good at collaborating across the sector. The same applies to the new centre for digital literacy, which is also a collaboration across universities and university colleges with the ambition to prepare Danish children and young people to navigate in a new digital reality. Together with a large number of other solid research projects, the two initiatives help to ensure that the faculty makes a major and positive impact on the everyday lives of children and young people in Denmark, and this is something we should be proud of.

Unfortunately, the turn of the year is not a peaceful time for everyone in the world. I am, too, deeply affected by the conflicts that are taking place around the world. But I would like to thank all of you for being able to embrace each other’s opinions and commitment in relation to these conflicts in a peaceful and respectful way. We have to make an effort to show ourselves, each other and future students that there is room and respect for diversity at the university, and that by mixing perspectives, we can create a better future for ourselves and the world.

This is something I look forward to working on together in 2024. Now it is time to let the Christmas spirit descend on all of us.

I hope that you will be able to relax, recharge and enjoy the holiday with your loved ones and forget about work until we meet again in 2024.

A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all.

Best regards,

Maja
Dean