In accordance with AU tradition, each main academic area will award an honorary doctorate in connection with the annual celebration on 9 September. The academic councils at Arts, Science and Technology, Health, and School of Business and Social Sciences have nominated an eminent researcher in their field who has contributed to the development of research and education at AU through his or her close collaboration with the main academic area. The award ceremony will take place Friday afternoon in the Main Hall.
The four researchers who will be honoured with the title doctor honoris causa are:
Two of the honorary doctors will give talks at their main academic areas before the annual celebration. Dr Fukuyama will conduct a master class for PhD students, while Dr Whitesides will give a lecture at the iNANO Center.
At the ceremony in the Main Hall, this year's distinguished alumnus will also be appointed, and a number of other prizes will be awarded: the Aarhus University Anniversary Foundation's Research Communication Prize, and the Aarhus University Anniversary Foundation's Prize of Honour for Pedagogics, as well as two HM Queen Margrethe II Travel Grants and special recognition of an outstanding PhD student.
After intense international competition, two researchers from Science and Technology have been selected to receive Starting Grants from the ERC.
The grant recipients are Dr Lars Bojer Madsen, Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Dr Jesper Buus Nielsen, Department of Computer Science. They have received grants in the categories of Physical Sciences and Engineering respectively. Dr Madsen works with theoretical nuclear physics, molecular physics and optical physics. He has been awarded EUR 1,330,305 for his TMDET project. Dr Nielsen's research interests include data security and cryptology. He has been awarded EUR 1,171,019 for his BRiCPT project.
Starting Grants are awarded to promising junior researchers, who are eligible for up to twelve years after receiving their doctorates. Grants of up to EUR 2 million are available for ground-breaking research projects over a five-year period. In addition to Starting Grants, the ERC also awards Advanced Grants to exceptional research managers.
Eight Starting Grants and six Advanced Grants have been awarded to AU researchers since the ERC began the programme in 2007. Before the latest round of grants, AU was number one in Europe and number one in Europe on the list of universities which have received the most ERC grants.
When STADS (Studies Administrative System) is launched on 24 October, the university will have taken an important step closer to establishing a coherent landscape of IT support systems for study administration at AU.
STADS and supplementary IT systems will provide a total overview of the individual student's academic career, as well as uniform and systematic university-wide registration of degree programmes, teaching activities and exams.
The new system will affect technical-administrative and academic staff as well as students. In the near future, everyone who will be working with STADS and other new studies administration systems will receive additional information about what they can expect in connection with the transition to the new systems.
Kind regards
the Senior Management Group
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