Professional and coherent management is a prerequisite for the effective running of a large university. The university sector is undergoing a process of adaptation to ensure that growth in the sector can be handled efficiently and that the increased resources can lead to more research, better research-based advice to the authorities and the development of a supply of degree programmes oriented towards the future. This process places heavy demands on management at all levels. In the academic field, the university has undertaken a major shift from collegial to employed management. In addition, the University of Aarhus has to integrate the administration of six independent institutions into one cohesive, user-friendly and effective administration. This is why the university is establishing a new, effective and cohesive management body that is able to handle the larger and broader portfolio of tasks that the University of Aarhus will be facing in the future.

The aims and objectives are:

• to have an effective, trustworthy and user-friendly administration that supports the university’s objectives and activities
• that the rectorate, as well as academic and administrative managers, must establish clear guidelines for how the university can strengthen its strong national and international position, how the university’s shared identity can contain its diversity, and how the university can create strategic coherence and synergy within its core activities.

The University of Aarhus has decided:

• that management must be open, visible and motivating
• that competence development must be undertaken at all management levels within the organisation and priority given to the recruitment of leaders
• that the distribution of centralised and decentralised management tasks must be determined
• that the university’s organisational chart must be reviewed and tasks clearly delegated to deans, academic directors, heads of departments and institutes, and administrative managers.