The award was established in 2010 as a present to Her Majesty Queen Margrethe on the occasion of The Queen’s 70th birthday, and widened in 2012 on the occasion of The Queen’s 40th Jubilee. A total of four awards are granted, one to a student at each of the four faculties. Two of the awards are always reserved for a student of political science (The School of Business and Social Sciences) and a student of archaeology (The Faculty of Arts), as The Queen studied these subjects as a student at Aarhus University in 1961-62. The award of DKK 25,000 is intended to enable the award winners to spend a study period abroad in connection with their studies at Aarhus University.

School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University

In January 2015, Caroline E. Fisker earned her Bachelor's degree in classical archaeology with a supplementary subject in History of Religions. She completed her degree six months faster than the prescribed study period and is considered an exceptionally promising student.

In the spring, Caroline E. Fisker had the opportunity to do an internship at Villa Giulia – the National Etruscan Museum in Rome. She has worked with archaeological finds at the Danish Institute in Rome, and, together with the Norwegian Institute in Athens, she has participated in an excavation at Kastro Apalirou, an ancient Byzantine urban area.

Caroline E. Fisker's primary field of interest is archaeology in Asia Minor (now Turkey), and she wrote her Bachelor's project on burial customs and urbanisation in Hierapolis in Asia Minor. Based on fieldwork, her project focused on finds from a burial site and provided new insight into the Roman Empire's influence on the eastern provinces of the empire.

Caroline E. Fisker has just started her Master's degree programme in classical archaeology and will continue to focus on the urbanisation of the Mediterranean region. She therefore intends to spend the travel grant on a trip to the major archaeological sites of ancient Asia Minor.

Aarhus University School of Engineering

Lasse Beck Thostrup is doing his Bachelor of Engineering degree in information technology (ICT) at Aarhus University School of Engineering. He has completed the first four semesters of the programme with exceptionally good results and a high level of creativity. Among other things, he has helped develop a door control package for prisons, an electric skateboard with an energy-efficient motor and an Internet portal for creating different quiz games.

Lasse has been awarded the travel grant on the strength of his academic results and interpersonal skills, which have also led to him being offered an engineering internship with Kamstrup A/S in autumn 2015.

In spring 2016, he will be spending a semester in the USA, doing courses in subjects including cryptography and artificial intelligence at the University of Connecticut.

Section for Sport Science, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University.

Simon Riis is doing his Master's degree in biological sports theory at Aarhus University, where he has demonstrated an extraordinary talent for research. Furthermore, he has shown a high level of initiative, and alongside his studies he has also taught on the Bachelor's degree programme in sport science. He has demonstrated extensive knowledge and considerable independence as well as devoting a lot of energy to supporting other students through his work as a dedicated student teacher.

Simon Riis has submitted an application for a PhD fellowship and would like to investigate how a combined diet and exercise strategy with focus on optimising fat combustion affects the exercise process, and how fat combustion is regulated when exercising. He hopes that his research might contribute to the development of exercise and dietary recommendations for slightly overweight people with poor insulin sensitivity, as well as for top athletes such as cyclists and triathletes.

The travel grant is to be spent on stays or conferences abroad which can give Simon Riis access to cutting-edge, international research within his field.

Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University 

Lasse Egendal Leipziger has completed his Bachelor's degree in political science at Aarhus BSS and is now on the first semester of his Master's degree programme. Alongside his intensive studies, he has worked a student assistant on a large research project on welfare state reforms headed by Associate Professor Carsten Jensen.

Besides earning high marks throughout the course of his studies, he has also taken an interest in giving something back to his fellow students, for instance as a voluntary organiser of Aarhus Symposium in 2014, the purpose of which was to connect students with leading decision-makers in the real world.

Lasse Egendal Leipziger has an international background. He grew up in both Germany and Denmark, lived in the USA for one year as a child, and during upper secondary school he spent a year as an exchange student in Mexico. The travel grant is intended to help fund study abroad in the autumn semester at the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris, which counts among its alumni a number of French presidents.