“We must make room for the shining stars”

What would you like to highlight from the past year?

This year, I participated in a number of events at the school which made a great impression on me - such as the Case Competition and Aarhus Symposium.  I’m amazed by what our students deliver academically and by what they are able to organise. I also participated in the events “Om Ledelse” and the Aarhus BSS Business Conference, which are held by Aarhus BSS in collaboration with our external partners. Once again I was amazed by the great setup.

I’m also constantly impressed by the high quality research that we deliver at Aarhus BSS - from our PhD students to our more seasoned researchers. Everyone is making a great contribution, and this is being noticed outside the school as well. I’m also seeing a lot more high-quality research collaborations across our various disciplines. And I’m pleased that BTECH has made great progress in relation to building a strong research foundation. This will benefit the rest of Aarhus BSS and other stakeholders.

Which challenges do you see in the coming year?

We have a lot of talented researchers at Aarhus BSS - and we have to keep it that way. In fact, we need even more of them. At the same time, we need to make sure that those who stand out want to stay. Simply put, we have to get better at attracting and retaining the best researchers. Top researchers are important to a university because they add a lot of value, which benefits everyone. They make our school an even more interesting and attractive place to work - both for the current and potential employees. So we must have room for top researchers at Aarhus BSS - room for the shining stars, so to speak.

We also need to get better at recruiting more broadly on an international level. If you want to be one of the world’s leading business schools, you can’t just think in regional terms. No university can. That’s why I’d very much like to see us become part of the international recruitment that takes place between universities. In no way should this be interpreted as a rejection of our own talented researchers. On the contrary, we simply need to get better at recruiting - but also at exchanging our own talented employees - on an international level. This will strengthen us as a school and help build a bridge between Aarhus BSS and other research institutions across the world.

That’s why we introduced a spouse scheme this year in collaboration with Business Region Aarhus. The scheme will make it easier for the researchers’ accompanying spouses to land jobs. The scheme already appears to be a success and is a good example of how we can create solutions together with other public and private sector companies who face the same challenges as we do.

Do you have any final words for the employees?

In the past year, I’ve noticed that we’ve become more visible as a school - both visually with the new Aarhus BSS signs and flags, but also in people’s minds. I’m really happy about that. We’ve been through - and are still in the process of - a difficult exercise with a merger and a new name. But we’re definitely on the right track. And we’ve all had a hand in that, so thank you all very much!