Network
New neighbours and new opportunities for the Faculty of Science
In 2024, SDU, and also the Faculty of Science, will have a new neighbour: Odense University Hospital (New OUH). But as soon as the spring of 2023, the Faculty of Health Sciences (SUND) will move to the campus and occupy the new buildings at the end of the BMB corridors.
Right now, the faculty management at the Faculty of Science is in dialogue with SUND and OUH on many fronts. All to ensure optimal neighbourly relations when the Faculty of Science merges with our new neighbours in a unified building of over 500,000 square metres. The fact that a university and a university hospital are under the same roof is unique, but internal changes are required in order to utilise that structure for our common benefit.
Head of Department Jakob Møller-Jensen is deeply involved in the discussions with OUH and SUND, and he is very much looking forward to everything that is about to happen, but which also gives rise to many questions and challenges:
– In the faculty management, we are very aware that very soon the two organisations will be joined together. Both physically, but hopefully also figuratively. For what opportunities does the new physical framework provide and the closeness that is thus to be created between SDU and OUH? And how do we make the best use of these opportunities in our research, teaching and administration? I’m very excited to see what will happen there.
Jakob Møller-Jensen participates in several management forums on these very issues. A joint management forum with heads of department from SDU and executive board members from OUH as well as the Danish Translational Hub, which originates from the RI Council at SDU, and with the following goal: “We will translate research and innovation in order to benefit humans and society”.
Dean Marianne Holmer also participates in meetings with the executive board at OUH about future collaborations, and like Jakob Møller-Jensen she is excited by the idea that two such large organisations will soon be joined together.
– I have a great desire for us as a faculty to exploit the potential that naturally arises when two such large organisations come closer to each other. OUH’s slogan is: The patient at the centre, and I would very much encourage everyone at the Faculty of Science to consider how we can play into exactly that. We actually have many researchers who work with research for the benefit of patients, but the doctors at OUH don’t necessarily know this.
The executive boards at SDU and OUH are already talking about joint elite centres, and the Faculty of Science could also play a crucial role in this area.
Jakob Møller-Jensen believes that there are several places where it can have an impact on the Faculty of Science that we are getting SUND and OUH as future neighbours.
– Already, we are seeing VIP positions shared between OUH and SDU, and there are PhD students who are conducting research across organisational boundaries. In the future, we will see more joint research, interdisciplinary consortia and the sharing of infrastructure to a greater extent. It will be an exciting time but also a time of upheaval.
At the moment, the Faculty management is considering how the Faculty of Science can best prepare for the new neighbours and how the subject can become a strategic priority for the Faculty in 2023.