The University's academic staff have a considerable degree of freedom in organising and carrying out their work. This helps to create great job satisfaction, and encourages working efforts that generally lie above the level that can be expected for the category of job concerned. The University benefits a good deal from this.

In terms of staff policy, academic staff should be familiar with the University's expectations regarding their working efforts and the results achieved. In this way the responsibility of the management for supervising their working efforts can be expressed, and the conditions governing this supervision and its effects must be clear to all.

The main emphasis in the work of any member of the academic staff is on research and teaching, but the efforts made in all areas of activity under the Danish Universities Act must be understood and assessed as a whole. Subject to agreement on this point, reduced efforts in one of the two main areas can (at least for a while) be compensated for by increased efforts in one or more other area. Research efforts are dealt with separately below.

The heads of institutes are responsible for supervision, supported by directors of studies. Each faculty must give the supervisors the necessary references for the subject matter and activities in question, making it possible to describe satisfactory working efforts and to carry out supervision in an equal and fair manner within each faculty. These guidelines concern all the procedures that are to be observed in performing supervision.

The heads of institutes (and heads of centres at centres resembling institutes) are responsible for supervision of the working efforts of academic staff. At institutes which have formalised departments, the head of institute may delegate everyday management tasks (including responsibility for staff) to a head of department. Heads of department may only provide an informal reaction or comment by word of mouth (this is under the concept of everyday management responsibility), since the head of institute is the only one entitled to apply the sanctions mentioned below.

If the working efforts of a member of the academic staff cannot be described as satisfactory, it may be necessary to apply sanctions at three levels: recommendations, warnings, and dismissal. Sanctions are normally only applied if the previous level(s) of sanction has/have already been applied. The head of institute is entitled to apply the two first sanctions, to which relevant guidelines concerning the subject matter and staff issues are linked. If these sanctions do not produce the intended result, the head of institute may recommend to the dean that a member of academic staff should be dismissed. A final decision on this point will be made by the rector.

Second, minutes shall be kept of all meetings at which criticised working efforts are presented and discussed, and at which guidance is given to the member of staff concerned. These minutes shall be signed by the member of staff or sent to the member of staff for their comments.

Third, all sanctions must be formulated in writing and the member of staff must be informed of them immediately. Reasons for sanctions must be given, and the member of staff must have been given the opportunity to comment on these reasons previously - or must be given the opportunity to comment on them now. Sanctions must be proportionate to the nature and extent of the unacceptable working efforts, not least when warnings are issued or recommendations for dismissal are made.

Fourth, all conversations and sanctions must explicitly account for what is expected of the member of staff concerned within a specified period of time. Similarly, the member of staff should be informed when the institute deems that the problem has been solved.

Fifth, the member of staff must be encouraged to utilise the services of his/her union representative (an observer). At the very least, the union representative must be informed before the meeting, and must be given the minutes of the meeting.

Sixth, all written material connected to all cases must be stored in the University's staff archive.

Special points regarding supervision of research

Research, its results and the publication of these results are such important aspects in the work of the academic staff that the focus placed on this area is justifiable. Research is also the most difficult part of the work of academic staff to assess using clear, operational criteria that also allow for the process of research. Research projects and their results do not always progress as expected or desired, so the assessment of such efforts must always include more than a single calendar year. The University attaches great importance to announcing its results (e.g. in the form of publications), and consequently the assessment of the research efforts of individual members of staff is linked to the annual contribution to the University's annual report.

The procedure for supervision of research is that every spring the head of institute (or head of centre) checks that the research efforts of all academic staff over a rolling three-year period are satisfactory. If they are not satisfactory (providing that no particular distribution of workload has been agreed and no special circumstances apply), the overall efforts of the member of staff concerned are investigated for the period in question. (These efforts have often already been documented in full or in part.) If the efforts are still regarded as unsatisfactory, a process is started that may lead to sanctions being applied (see above). Once all the members of staff have been assessed, the head of institute presents the material to the dean, including information about which members of staff have been subject to sanctions.

Naturally, the head of institute will discuss the research and research plans of each member of academic staff in connection with their staff development review. The union representative (an observer) does not attend these, so such reviews cannot form part of the formal process that leads to sanctions being applied.

Niels Chr. Sidenius
rector