As previously announced, Rector Brian Bech Nielsen will be holding an open meeting on 22 October at 10.00 for all staff members and students at Aarhus University. The meeting will take place in the Main Hall at Aarhus University and will be live-streamed on the AU website.
At the meeting, the rector will present the decisions made by the senior management team based on:
The format of the meeting on 22 October in the Main Hall will be the same as the meeting held on 15 August in Stakladen: a presentation by the rector followed by questions from the audience and questions asked via email. The only difference is that the venue for the meeting cannot be Stakladen as desired, as Stakladen is booked for another major event on that date.
Meeting for administrative staff members at 12 noon in the Main Hall
After the meeting on the senior management team's decisions and the plan for the further process, Brian Bech Nielsen will be hosting a meeting for administrative staff members in his capacity as the person with the ultimate responsibility for the AU Administration. At this meeting, Brian Bech Nielsen will elaborate on the decisions which will affect the AU Administration in particular, as well as answering questions from the audience and questions posed online.
The meeting will be held at 12 noon in the Main Hall. This meeting will also be streamed live on the university website.
Follow-up meetings for the employees will be held at the faculties. These will be announced on the faculty websites.
After various initial exploratory approaches by both parties, Universities Denmark and the Ministry of Higher Education and Science are now engaged in a dialogue about the government's much-debated proposed resizing of university degree programmes.
Rector Brian Bech Nielsen and Rector Ralf Hemmingsen, University of Copenhagen, have held a meeting with the minister and relevant civil servants at which the inexpedient aspects in the current proposal were discussed.
"We agree with the minister that a resizing of certain degree programmes is called for, but the model presents several problems. The biggest issue is the ministry's model for resizing admissions at Master's degree level, which will result in a very short phasing-in period and will have major consequences, for example with regard to the interaction between Danish university degree programmes at Master's degree level, both nationally and internationally. I'm pleased that the minister has clearly indicated that she is willing to discuss the proposal, and I look forward to the continued discussions," says Rector Brian Bech Nielsen.
Head of Department Hanne Løngreen is leaving her position at the Department of Education in order to take up a new position at Roskilde University (RUC) as head of the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies.
Johnny Laursen, acting Dean of Arts, will appoint a department head for a transitional period, as the faculty is in the middle of an internal dialogue process about its future organisation. Once this process has been completed, the department head position will be advertised.
This week, the Danish National Research Foundation announced the names of 12 new basic research centres. Three of these went to researchers from Aarhus University, who will receive a combined DKK 177 million for the establishment of the following centres:
The total grant available this year from the Danish National Research Foundation slightly exceeded DKK 1 billion.
After two years of extensive renovation, the new Moesgaard Museum once again opened its doors to the public on 11 October 2014.
The new museum is designed for the innovative communication of prehistory, but the opening also marks a strengthening of the collaboration between AU's academic environments at Moesgaard and Moesgaard Museum. Large parts of the museum's exhibitions have thus been created in close collaboration between the university's researchers, students of archaeology and anthropology and the museum's experts.
The museum was officially inaugurated on 10 October by HM Queen Margrethe.
On 9 October, Aarhus University and the Danish Agency for Higher Education met for negotiations on the future development contract for Aarhus University. The meeting was both positive and constructive. Minister Sofie Carsten Nielsen has expressed a particular wish for a strong focus on degree programme quality in the universities' 2015 development contracts.
The development contract must be finalised in January.
Aarhus University is hosting a conference on Big Data where researchers from the university will present Big Data viewed from various angles. Researchers, companies and organisations will also present a number of cases that explore how they work together to develop and apply Big Data.
The conference will be opened by Dean Allan Flyvbjerg.
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/2014.