The senior management team would like to take this opportunity to wish all students and staff a wonderful summer and a well-earned break.
In his summer greeting, the rector addresses the financial and other challenges which Aarhus University has faced in the first half of 2016. He urges everyone to assume responsibility for ensuring development and excellence in education and research at the university.
In their summer greetings, the deans at Arts, Health, and Science and Technology look back on the academic year and the future development of their faculties. Dean of Arts Johnny Laursen, Dean of Health Allan Flyvbjerg, Dean of Science and Technology Niels Chr. Nielsen
The next newsletter from the senior management team will be published on Friday 5 August.
For more than 10,000 applicants, Aarhus University was their first choice university this year. This represents an increase of approx. 5 per cent relative to 2015, and is thus the largest number of first-choice applicants in the university’s history. In total, Aarhus University received more than 27,000 applications, which is approx. 9 per cent more than last year, according to preliminary figures which the university has received from the Coordinated Enrolment System (KOT).
The financial plan, which was approved by the University Board in mid-June, was one of the main items on the agenda at the Main Liaison Committee meeting on 30 June. At the meeting, University Director Arnold Boon summarised the financial plan, which received general support from the members of the committee, who emphasised that the plan reflects calm deliberation and attention to detail despite the difficult conditions.
Novo Nordisk and Aarhus University, Science and Technology, recently signed a five-year cooperation agreement to strengthen protein technology research and development.
The accreditation panel, which visited AU at the beginning of June, has just selected six audit trails which will shed light on quality assurance at Aarhus University. This is another important milestone in the process of achieving institutional accreditation (IA).
From 2017, medical students at Aarhus University will be able to take business-oriented courses as part of their degree programme. The intention is to give particularly interested and talented students the opportunity to learn about the pharmaceutical and biotech industry during their studies. Opening up the medical degree programme to the industry is one of the senior management team’s strategic initiatives adopted by the University Board in June.
Aarhus University’s new communication practice marks a break with the central principles of the former branding strategy which it replaces, and is tailored to the university’s current and future needs. An interdisciplinary working group has done the preparatory groundwork, which was initiated as part of the follow-up on the problem analysis in 2014. The practice was considered by the academic councils, and has now been adopted by the senior management team, which emphasises the importance of respecting the identities of the individual units.
The Danish Council for Independent Research has recently announced new calls for proposals for a number of grants with application deadlines in September/October 2016 and spring 2017. In total, DKK 1 billion is available for ground-breaking research.
On 1 July, Associate Professor Per Stounbjerg, dr.phil., became head of department at the School of Communication and Culture. He has served as acting head of department since October 2015.
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/2015.