News from the Senior Management Team no. 35/2012
Three Arctic days launch new research activities
In the past week, Aarhus University has made a name for itself within Arctic research after organising a string of events that add weight to the scientific involvement and potential in the area.
On Friday, the interdisciplinary Arctic Research Centre was inaugurated with talks and research presentations that underlined the centre’s ambitions regarding new research and educational activities as well as stronger international collaboration.
The new centre is expected to contribute significantly to building up knowledge on the consequences of raw materials' extraction in the Arctic. This was also the theme for Monday's Polar Research Day. Here, 200 researchers, politicians, administrators and industry experts were assembled to clarify the possibilities for extracting minerals and oil while respecting the Greenlandic community as well as the country's fauna, flora and environment.
On Monday evening, three of the centre's researchers provided a taste of Arctic research and the challenges it poses at one of the public talks which Aarhus University organises where more than 1,000 people showed up.
The three days concluded with a meeting on Tuesday in the Arctic Council where know-how and experience were exchanged, and where Denmark's Arctic ambassador, the Greenlandic and Faroese self-governments and representatives from a number of Arctic research institutions together laid the foundations for a stronger internal research alliance in relation to data gathering and logistics.
New interdisciplinary centre strengthens register-based research
Register-based research will get a resource boost when Aarhus University opens a new interdisciplinary research centre on Friday, the Centre for Integrated Register-based Research at AU (CIRRAU).
In setting up CIRRAU, Aarhus University wants to strengthen the work which the National Centre for Register-based Research has handled since 2001 by extending access to new and a wider range of data types from the Danish Health and Medicines Authority, Statistics Denmark and environmental databases. This will make it easier for economics, health and scientific researchers to combine different datasets in new ways.
The new centre has been formed through a collaboration between the three main academic areas Health, BSS and ST, and results from the stronger interdisciplinary efforts at Aarhus University.
Debate on digital exams at Aarhus University
Last week's newsletter from the senior management team included an article about a recently concluded pilot project aimed at digitising the submission and marking of written exam papers.
At the moment, Aarhus University has two digital exam projects: one is a pilot project on the digital submission and marking of written exams, while the other is a project on digital exams that will enable the university to make the switch to fully digital exams by the end of 2013 at the latest. In the subsequent debate, the two projects have been confused, for which reason there now is a brief clarification on the website.
Calendar
- 28 September: Opening of the interdisciplinary centre CIRRAU
- 8 October: Danish Minister for Culture Uffe Elbæk visits CAVI
- 30 October: Opening of the interdisciplinary centre PIT
- 31 October: University Board meeting
- 31 October: ‘Universitetssamvirket’ meeting
Kind regards
The Senior Management Team