To all appearances, the list of basic research centres at Aarhus University can soon be extended to include two new members.
The Danish National Research Foundation has just announced that it will begin negotiations with Professor Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Professor Bo Barker Jørgensen, Department of Bioscience, on establishing two basic research centres.
Professor Christensen-Dalsgaard’s project is called the Stellar Astrophysics Centre: Research on the Sun, stars and extra-solar planets (SAC) and it can receive up to DKK 55 million, while Professor Jørgensen’s project application for the Centre for Geomicrobiology (CfG) can be granted up to DKK 59 million. In this round of applications, the Danish National Research Foundation can award grants amounting to DKK 585 million altogether.
The former Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has had its fields of responsibility extended so that Morten Østergaard – the newly appointed minister – is responsible for a wider range of higher education programmes. The minister is now also responsible for business academies and the State Education Grant and Loan Scheme in Denmark (SU), Bachelor’s degrees at university colleges and several artistic education programmes, as well as university degree programmes and research and innovation. The ministry is now called the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education – commonly referred to as the Ministry of Education.
With the new minister and the new ministry, Denmark’s recently elected government sends a strong signal that the universities play a crucial societal role in developing Denmark, and Aarhus University looks forward to collaborating with the new minister. The university also welcomes the fact that, by placing the Ministry of Education in the key finance and coordination committees, the government signals that this area has high priority.
Along with the Aarhus University Hospital and the Central Denmark Region, Aarhus University has applied to set up a new centre for particle therapy in Aarhus.
The centre represents an investment of close to DKK 500 million, and it will provide more efficient and gentler treatment for cancer patients.
The Aarhus application focuses on aspects such as the strong collaboration between science and health study areas, and the unique research basis that exists in Aarhus. An international expert group appointed by the Ministry of Interior and Health will now decide on the location of the centre for particle therapy.
In the new brand manual for Aarhus University, a decision has been made regarding the names of the individual units, their e-mail addresses, how to mention them in the media, and many other details. The brand manual was published last week on the university’s website (in Danish only).
One of the topics in the brand manual is personal e-mail addresses. The university management team has reviewed the decision about how the personal e-mail addresses should appear. Instead of the original proposal, e.g. 1234@au.dk, e-mail names will now have initials plus the entire surname before @.
The original idea still remains of only having au.dk after @. Research units can choose to add an abbreviation of their name after @. Jens Christian Hansen, Department of Computer Science, will thus have jchansen@cs.au.dk as his e-mail address when the forthcoming joint e-mail and calendar system is introduced. All employees will be directly contacted by AU IT within the next two weeks.
Aarhus University has moved up forty-two places in the latest edition of the so-called Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. The university thus has a placing as number one hundred and twenty-five in the world and number forty-four in Europe. This is just the second year that the ranking list has appeared in its new format, and three Danish universities figure in the top two hundred.
The THE rankings are the last of the year’s three major ranking lists, and Aarhus University has managed to record progress in all of them. In the Shanghai ranking list, the university moved up twelve places and is now number eighty-six, while it advanced five places in the QS ranking list to a position as number seventy-nine.
THE stands out from the other ranking lists by taking into account different academic traditions and geographical conditions. For example, scientific articles are on average more frequently cited by peers in natural science than in social science. The ranking list makes an allowance for this, just as the universities’ research revenues are adjusted in relation to the purchasing power in each university’s home country.
Seventeen leading members of staff from the University of Gothenburg are visiting Aarhus University on 13–14 October to gain insight into the academic development process. Pro Vice-Chancellor Margareta Wallin, University of Gothenburg, has closely followed the process as an external member of the Board of Aarhus University, and the Swedish university has its own plans for an academic and administrative reorganisation.
Earlier this year, representatives from Lund University, Sweden, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) visited Aarhus University to hear about the procedure from the mergers in 2006–2007 up to the academic development process, and the impact this has had on Aarhus University and the Danish university landscape in general.
PROFILE 11/12 is currently being distributed to all main academic areas, departments, centres and administrative units. The profile brochure presents a wide selection of the university’s core activities in research, talent development, knowledge exchange and education. It provides an overall impression of Aarhus University’s strengths and focus areas, as well as the university’s extensive academic breadth and talented researchers.
You can order several copies of the profile brochure for use at conferences, external relations meetings, etc.
Aarhus University is involved in a number of building and renovation projects that will ensure better physical frameworks for research and education activities. These include the new iNANO laboratory complex (9,800 square metres), which will open in Langelandsgade in 2012, the new construction (10,000 square metres) in Finlandsgade for the Engineering College of Aarhus, and the new S Building (6,100 square metres) in Fuglesangs Allé, which will be used by students and researchers at School of Business and Social Sciences.
The new greenhouse in the Botanical Gardens and an extension to the Påskehøjgaard research centre will open in 2013, while the new buildings and laboratory renovations planned in the University Park are due for completion in 2015–2016.
These buildings are part of the implementation of the university’s vision plan for 2010–2028, which will ensure Aarhus University’s physical framework seen in the light of the anticipated growth.
Kind regards
The Senior Management Team
The Senior Management Group publishes a newsletter every week. This newsletter includes a brief description of current activities and discussions. You can sign up for the Danish version of the newsletter at http://info.au.dk/medarbbreve, after which you will receive an e-mail whenever the newsletter is issued.
If you would like to subscribe to the English version of News from the Senior Management Group, please go to http://info.au.dk/medarbbreve/index.asp?sprog=en. The English version of News from the Senior Management Group is available at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/. You can read previous editions of News from the Senior Management Group at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/2011.