Quality in our educational programmes - something we work with every day
By Jan Guldager Jørgensen, Vice-Dean for Education
Quality in our educational programmes is a key element at SDU. It is about attracting academically talented and committed students, creating inspiring teaching and ensuring that our programmes and graduates are future ready.
Across SDU, we are working purposefully with our shared ambition to offer attractive educational programmes on a number of fronts. One of the new initiatives at SDU is that in 2026, we will be reducing the number of student places so that we will admit fewer students to our programmes overall. The purpose is to ensure that we admit talented students from Denmark and internationally who can live up to our high academic requirements.
The ambition is to strengthen the teaching and professionalism of the educational programmes. Last year, SDU introduced a grade requirement of 7.0 in quota 1 for bachelor's degree programmes, which will be applied to all programmes at the faculty in the future and will enable us to better attract and retain curious, talented and motivated students and create an even better framework for those we educate.
And now, at the university, we are taking another step: We are developing a number of signature programmes with an intake of up to 40 students. The goal is to create ambitious learning environments with high student engagement and teaching activities that emphasise a high degree of interaction between lecturers and students, teamwork and an even closer link to both research and practice.
The development work is already in full swing, and we will be admitting the first students to the programmes at the study start in September. Each faculty will have 1-2 signature programmes, and at The Faculty of Social Sciences and SDU Business School, the bachelor's degree programmes in Economics and Market and Management Anthropology will be the first. A key element in the development of the signature programmes is that the experiences we gain will be shared and inspire other educational programmes, thereby helping to strengthen the education portfolio as a whole.
At the same time, quality assurance and development is an ongoing effort that takes place very close to the educational programmes. Every year, we systematically follow up on all programmes, set new goals and adjust the direction in close dialogue and in collaboration with our Heads of Studies. This is an important part of ensuring that our educational programmes are constantly evolving in terms of content and pedagogy in line with the needs and expectations of both students and society. Here, forums such as employer advisory boards and study boards - along with ongoing dialogue with students and lecturers - also play a key role in making our educational programmes even better.
Quality in education is also about both academic and social well-being. At SDU BSS, we have therefore launched a new project under the heading #samhør, which brings together initiatives related to student well-being. As part of the project, selected students in the class of 2025 will be followed across campuses throughout their study time to gain more knowledge about and make our work with students' well-being, engagement, retention and sense of belonging on the educational programme even more data driven.
As part of the project, other activities have also been initiated such as follow-up with tutors, strengthened interdisciplinary forums where questions and experiences can be shared, and the study environment for SDU BSS students in Odense has received a much-needed boost, which you can read more about in this newsletter. These are all targeted initiatives to help students fulfil their potential, both academically and socially.
With the overall effort - from quality work close to the educational programmes to new initiatives at SDU level that strengthen both professionalism and well-being - we have a good starting point for the further development of our educational programmes. This is a joint project, and I look forward to continuing our work together to create even stronger and more attractive learning environments in the coming years.