The Danish National Research Foundation has awarded funding for three new basic research centres at AU. They belong to a group of ten new Centers of Excellence receiving funding totalling DKK 1.1 billion. Two of the new centres will be affiliated with Science and Technology and one with Aarhus BSS.
At its latest meeting, the Aarhus University Board approved a three-year extension for Berit Eika as pro-rector. The extension was based on a recommendation from Rector Brian Bech Nielsen.
“Berit has performed the role of pro-rector with great skill. Our study programmes are characterised by high quality, and quality is critically dependent on good frameworks for our academic environments, including interaction between teachers and students. Berit has led the way in establishing such a framework and has managed to promote development, even at a time where we have been faced with implementing numerous political reforms. I’m therefore very pleased that the Board has approved the pro-rector extension, and I look forward to continuing our collaboration. I believe that, like me, Berit would welcome slightly fewer political reforms going forward,” says Brian Bech Nielsen.
The three-year extension will take effect on 1 June 2020.
Last Thursday was the deadline for sending consultation responses for Aarhus University’s 2025 strategy. The Senior Management Team would like to thank you all for your input.
In the coming weeks, the Senior Management Team will consider all consultation responses received and adjust the strategy draft prior to the final discussions of the Aarhus University Board on 13 December.
Aarhus University recently hosted an event to pay tribute to students who have excelled in elite sports or in entrepreneurship. The students have won medals at world championships, European championships or the Universiade, or they have been awarded prestigious prizes for their own start-ups. Common to the award winners is that they are all linked to the Dual Career programme at AU.
Two of the students who were honoured at the event were Sara Slott Petersen, Olympic medallist, and Henrikke Kylén Pedersen, founder of Manigrip.
On 16 October, HM Queen Margrethe II awarded the H.C. Ørsted Medal in Gold to chemistry professor Karl Anker Jørgensen. This was the first time in 30 years the medal was awarded. Karl Anker Jørgensen was awarded the medal for his ground-breaking research in the field of catalytic chemistry and his exceptional ability to communicate scientific results to a broader audience.
Professor Alexandre Anesio from Aarhus University is part of an international research team who has received an ERC Synergy Grant of EUR 11 million for its DEEP PURPLE project. Along with two professors from the University of Bristol and GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, respectively, he will throw light on how purple algae on the Greenland Ice Sheet will affect the environment in a warming climate.
Four senior AU researchers have each received grants of DKK 5 million from the Lundbeck Foundation Ascending Investigators programme. The programme aims to support established, experienced and talented health-science researchers and promote their careers, and thereby potentially make significant contributions to health sciences. Read more about the research projects for which the four researchers have received funding:
MatchPoints 2020 will focus on the Danish-German relationship under the theme "Denmark and Germany in Europe: Cooperation, conflict and future challenges”. MatchPoints will take place on 23-25 April next year and will target anyone with an interest in Danish, German and European aspects, whether they are researchers, members of the business community, government officials, upper secondary school teachers, students or members of the general public. A large number of researchers and debaters will visit the conference, including American historian and author Anne Applebaum and Professor Astrid Erll from Goethe University Frankfurt.
2020 marks the centenary of the reunification of Southern Jutland with the rest of Denmark, and the governments of Denmark and Germany have named 2020 the Danish-German Year of Cultural Friendship. The MatchPoints Seminar 2020 is relevant in this context. Registration for the conference will open in early January 2020.
The Danish University Extension recently published a large part of its 2020 programme. You can now sign up for lectures at standard prices.
Previously, all AU staff and alumni could sign up under a special agreement by which the Aarhus University Research Foundation donated funds allowing participation free of charge. Many participants have benefited from this scheme until the summer of 2019, but this was the last time AU staff and alumni were able to register for lectures free of charge based on the special agreement. In the future, free participation will no longer be possible.
If you are still interested in lectures at the Danish University Extension, you may sign up already now at the Danish University Extension website: www.fuau.dk.