This year’s Festival of Research was well-attended in both Aarhus and Foulum.
In conjunction with the opening of the Festival of Research, the annual Research Communication Award was again presented. This year's recipient was Lars Østergaard, professor and chair at Aarhus University and a consultant at Aarhus University Hospital.
The DKK 100,000 prize is awarded in recognition of a researcher who succeeds in bringing his or her work to the attention of a broad audience through effective communication.. Everyone can nominate candidates for the Research Communication Award, and on the basis of the submitted proposals, the Danish Council for Independent Research|Humanities nominates a candidate to the minister.
Each year, Aarhus University proudly hosts a very special event – the annual regatta. An energetic group of students organises the massive event each year, where departments and institutes compete for the Golden Bedpan in front of a 20-25,000-strong crowd of students from educational institutions all over Aarhus.
The regatta is part of what makes Aarhus a fantastic city for students.
If you haven't seen who won this year, click here, where you can also watch the final and see pictures from the day.
The Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) has been accepted as a member of NetIAS, a European network for the highest-ranking ‘Institutes of Advanced Study’.
AIAS has thus joined such esteemed institutes as Wissenschaftskolleg (Berlin), NIAS (Netherlands), SCAS (Uppsala) and the institute at the University of Cambridge. The network was established in 2004, among other things to promote methods and collaboration between institutes of this kind, and membership is given to institutes that live up to certain criteria with respect to excellence, volume, selection procedures etc.
For AIAS and AU, membership means an enhanced international profile and even better recruitment opportunities.
In Horizon 2020's first award year, Danish companies, researchers and government agencies and institutions have reaped more than DKK 1.1 billion, corresponding to 2.3 per cent of the total budget.
The government's target is 2.5 per cent of funding in the entire 2014-2020 programme period. The government has therefore decided to allocate DKK 30 million in 2015 to strengthening the amount of funding attracted by Danish institutions.
Read more about the ministry's funding, for example for networking activities that will improve Danish applicants' chances of attracting Horizon 2020 funds. More Danish applicants are needed – and better applications, says the Minister for Higher Education, Sofie Carsten Nielsen.
In an article in last Saturday's Politiken newspaper, Pro-rector Berit Eika wrote that the efforts being made to prevent stress among students must be broadened to include extracurricular and off-campus student life, in addition to the initiatives being taken at the universities.
In recent years, Aarhus University has put stress on the agenda and launched several initiatives aimed at preventing stress among students. This is not least due to the latest study environment survey, which showed that 17 per cent of students experienced severe stress symptoms on a daily basis. The symptoms were particularly widespread among female students.
However, there is nothing to suggest that the problem of stress either starts or stops at the universities. Therefore, Berit Eika is encouraging more coherent efforts to tackle the problem – from politicians, employers and parents.
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.