News from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office
No. 37, 30 October

Unfortunate breakdown of negotiations

Following the Danish Parliament’s breakdown of negotiations about globalisation funds on 26 October, it now appears that we can wave goodbye to a comprehensive and long-term political agreement. This is bad news for the universities. With regard to future-oriented work, we need broad and long-lasting agreements about the distribution of research and education funds. Excellent research and education require a planning horizon that stretches beyond the financial year and an election period. Aarhus University therefore naturally supports the call proposed by Universities Denmark for the conciliation parties and the Government to resume the globalisation negotiations.

Read more (in Danish only) at www.dkuni.dk

About the Global Dialogue Prize

The winner of the Global Dialogue Prize 2009 will be announced at the Global Dialogue Conference – Responsibility Across Borders? Climate Change as Challenge for Intercultural Inquiry on Values – to be held at Aarhus University on 3–6 November.

The Global Dialogue Prize is awarded for research and research communication of significance for the application of research in intercultural and cross-cultural value studies and intercultural dialogue. The prize is awarded to candidates who have developed such ideas, concepts or theories of importance to the development of global collaboration that cuts across cultures. The prize is being awarded for the first time, and is planned to be awarded every second year.

The Global Dialogue Prize is the initiative of the ICON research unit – Interculturality, Conflict, and Value Studies – some of whose researchers are tenured at Aarhus University. This year, ICON has received nominations for the prize from an international network of researchers, and has chosen twelve esteemed researchers from all over the world to make up the jury that will announce the winner on 5 November.

The idea of a Global Dialogue Prize is supported by the Municipality of Aarhus, VisitAarhus, the Central Denmark Region, Aarhus University and the Grundfos Foundation. The latter has sponsored the prize amounting to DKK 500,000. In accordance with good academic tradition, and with due respect to academic freedom, the above-mentioned jury is responsible for selecting the winner of the Global Dialogue Prize 2009. It is normal practice at the university that the science environments nominate candidates for scientific prizes, and this principle also applies to the Global Dialogue Prize.

Business community not to be involved in the development contract

The Danish Business Research Academy (DEA) has just published the report Vækst gennem tiden (Growth during the course of time), and one of the conclusions is that only two per cent of Danish companies currently use the universities as a source of innovation. There are two reasons in particular for questioning DEA’s survey. The business of the universities has presumably not been understood, nor the rapid development currently experienced by the higher education programmes and the universities’ other activities. Insufficient regard has been paid to Denmark’s business structure with many small companies.

DEA proposes that the companies should enter into the process at the universities at an earlier stage, and that partnerships should be established. However, companies should run business, and we should run universities. It is therefore wrong to suggest that the business community should be involved in the planning of the universities’ development contracts. The universities must be able to independently deliver the knowledge required by society in the future, and cannot adapt their strategy to the needs of the companies right now. The universities’ graduates and results are the very prerequisites for Danish companies being able to draw on the global knowledge market.

Academic synergies between the main academic areas

On 21 and 22 October, the university management and the administrative leaders of the main academic areas and the joint administration held a seminar at the Sandbjerg Estate. The topics for the seminar were concentrated on efforts to achieve academic synergies resulting from the completed mergers, and the university’s challenges in the light of the expected global and national changes. The debates were inspired by presentations by Quentin Thompson, Sachi Hatakenaka and Stephen P. Heynemann. Based on their comprehensive experience in the international university world, they pointed out ways by which successful universities all over the world have solved similar challenges.

Using these discussions as a starting point, the Vice-Chancellor’s Office will involve Quentin Thompson and Sachi Hatakenaka in the future-oriented process to achieve greater academic synergies between the main academic areas. Plans have therefore been made for these two to visit Aarhus University in the near future with a view to having discussions with the deans and other key individuals.

Kind regards
The Vice-Chancellor’s Office
30 October 2009

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You can read previous editions of News from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office at http://www.au.dk/en/uni/rectorate/newsletter/2009 .