From inspiring collaboration to a great loss

Dear staff

Last week, the executive board was on a study trip to the University of Freiburg (UFR) to follow up on the recently signed cooperation agreement. SDU and UFR want to strengthen the bilateral collaboration, and funds have therefore been allocated for various activities, including researcher and administrative mobility, seed funding for research groups and funds for teaching activities.

We visited UFR for 1½ days and in that short time we got to talk to our dean colleagues, management and researchers from different departments. UFR has 11 faculties, but is otherwise roughly the same size as SDU with just over 24,000 students and a total turnover similar to ours at SDU.

However, the university is much older and is characterised by being spread across the city. Some people mentioned that they have 250 buildings to keep track of - and the city is beautifully surrounded by several mountain ranges.

I highly recommend a visit for many reasons besides the academic ones, and spring was endlessly beautiful during the days we were in the city. I visited the Faculty of Engineering, which is made up of a number of newer buildings with top infrastructure. It is clear that there has been great growth in the technical field, as we also see in Denmark.

I also met with the Deans of Biology, Maths and Physics, Environment and Sustainability. The UFR is known for their excellence clusters, where cell signalling (CIBBS) has received excellence funding for over 21 years and Future Forests has entered their second grant.

It is clear that these large grants stimulate research tremendously. Throughout the visit, there was a really good chemistry between UFR and SDU. I sense a genuine interest in collaborating with SDU, not least in the areas that I brought from NAT.

Time was short, so we are arranging follow-up meetings with the deans, after which I will reach out to researchers at NAT to explore opportunities for collaboration.

In addition to the great hospitality and the good conversations over lunch and dinner with UFR, it's also a really nice experience travelling with the executive board. It strengthens our unity, and there is time to discuss big and small issues. In addition, it is extremely interesting to travel in these historical areas with the Rector, who always has a good story to tell.

Therefore, it came as a shock to us all that Thomas B. Wind passed away the night after we got home. Thomas has been a mainstay of the Rectorate since he came to SDU - and I have greatly appreciated his work to develop SDU.

We have had many good discussions about NAT's development, especially within finance and premises, which were two important areas of responsibility for Thomas.

I can only applaud the many kind words that have been written about Thomas in recent days. It is a great loss for SDU that we have lost Thomas - not least, he will be missed as part of the executive board and on the executive board's study tours.

Marianne Holmer, dean