At its annual celebration on 14 September, Aarhus University is conferring honorary doctorates on four important collaboration partners. Cooperation with the four prominent researchers exists within research, teaching and in the scientific networks, and helps to secure Aarhus University close links to leading international research.
The formal conferral of the doctorates takes place at the annual celebration where all four will be present. During their visit to Aarhus University, they will also participate in activities at the academic environments with which they are associated.
The four new honorary doctors are:
The university study programmes and their value for society and the individual topped the agenda when Universities Denmark recently held its annual one-day seminar, which this time took place at Aarhus University.
The discussions are paving the way for a conference, which will probably be organised next year in collaboration with the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences and the Danish Council for Research Policy.
Universities Denmark also discussed the proposed framework for the European research programme Horizon 2020 and the possibilities open to Danish universities to secure funding.
At the seminar, Jens Oddershede was re-elected as chairman and Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen as deputy chairman of Universities Denmark.
New knowledge about diabetes and new ways of preventing and treating the disease. These are the long-term perspectives of the Danish Diabetes Academy, which is being launched on 1 September. More than 300 researchers will be affiliated with the academy, and Aarhus University’s representative on the Academy Board is Dean Allan Flyvbjerg.
The Danish Diabetes Academy came into being as a result of donations exceeding DKK 200 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and DKK 40 million from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Funding of more than DKK 50 million is being provided by the universities.
To improve the information provided by administration to university employees, all the administration’s websites have been relaunched in the past week. All information has been gathered under ‘Administrative service’ at the special staff portal, staff.au.dk.
The intention is to make it easier for employees at AU to find the information they need in their daily work. The administrative service portal has been designed to meet user needs, and one of the new functions is an interdisciplinary subject index which makes it possible to find the most important subjects from the entire administration without first having to know which administrative area is responsible for the service in question.
On 1 August, Hanne Bach took up her appointment as the new Director General of the Danish Centre of Environment and Energy at Aarhus University (DCE).
The new director general is a familiar face in the organisation. Since autumn 2011, Hanne Bach has worked as chief consultant at DCE with project management, coordination and quality assurance of the university’s research-based public sector consultancy within the environment and nature, with special responsibility for the Arctic environment, atmospheric environment and socio-economic perspectives for environmental and nature conditions. Moreover, in 1999-2008 she was head of research at the former National Environmental Research Institute’s Department of Systems Analysis. Hanne Bach is replacing Vice-dean Kurt Nielsen, who has been acting Director General of DCE since 1 July 2011.
The job as director general for another national centre, Aarhus University’s Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture (DCA), has just been advertised.
Christina Breddam has just been appointed the new Deputy Director of Communication at AU Communication. The position has been advertised over the summer.
Christina Breddam has been acting Deputy Director of Communication since 1 May this year. Before then she was, among other things, HR head of Organisational Development and Work at AU HR, where she was also acting deputy director for a period while Louise Gade was on maternity leave. Prior to being employed in HR, Christina Breddam was head of administration at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences.
The Senior Management Team 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 Team, please go to http://info.au.dk/medarbbreve/index.asp?sprog=en. The English version of News from the Senior Management Team is available at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/. You can read previous editions of News from the Senior Management Team at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/2012.