Positive outlook in external funding
Even though we regret the grants we have missed, there were a lot of great grants to celebrate this year.
Dear staff
We are still waiting for a new government, and therefore many processes have been put on hold. This applies, for example, to the processing of applications for new educations where the faculty has applied for a bachelor's in Artificial Intelligence. There is no doubt that the program is in demand among students and employers, and the expectation is that it can attract new students to SDU, but we must wait patiently for a response from the ministry.
Conversely, many foundations are extremely active and in the Holliday mood at the moment. We are eagerly awaiting announcements from the Villum Foundation, which traditionally awards the Villum Young Investigator just before Christmas.
This week DFF published their Sapere Aude grants. The faculty is well represented with two grant recipients.
One is Erik Donovan Hedegård from FKF, who works with theoretical chemistry, and the other is Karl Attard from Biology, who works with climate change in the Arctic. Congratulations to both.
It's so important to get off to a good start. Several statistics show that the large, early grants can be decisive for the further career - especially within experimental research.
One such instrument is the ERC Starting Grants. Science Report has an article this week highlighting University of Copenhagen over other universities in terms of taking home ERC Starting Grants.
University of Copenhagen justifies the success with their strategy to attract and retain talent. Their experience is that strong research environments with existing ERC grants contribute to recruitment. In addition, specific areas of action are mentioned, but otherwise the grants are distributed widely at the university as a result of a broad focus on recruitment.
At our faculty, we were very close this year, as three researchers were invited for an interview at ERC. It's great to get this far - and I'd like to thank you for the great effort put into the applications. One applicant is on the waiting list, while we are demoralized by the rejection of the other two, as they were very strong applicants.
It is my assessment – despite Science Report's analysis – that we have the potential to attract ERC Starting Grants in the future. We have strong research environments with ERC grants, and the fact that there are two Sapere Aude grants on the way shows that we manage to attract young talent to our faculty at SDU.
We are now awaiting the rejection letters from the ERC - eager to learn more, before we send new applications next year.
Marianne Holmer, dean