Many roots, one faculty

Many roots, one faculty

Dear colleagues,

This year SDU celebrates its 60th anniversary. Odense University opened in 1966, and that is the point from which we count the 60 years we celebrate. At the Faculty of Engineering, however, we have several roots that date back further and meet in what today is TEK.

Our root in Sønderborg dates back to 1963 when Sønderborg Teknikum was established. In 1997 it joined forces with Handelshøjskole Syd, and the following year they became part of the merger that created SDU.

Engineering education in Odense dates back to 1905 when Odense Maskinteknikum, later Odense Teknikum, was established as the first Teknikum (Engineering College) in Denmark. When Odense University received its first students in 1966, it actually did so in borrowed premises at Odense Teknikum. Forty years later, in 2006, Odense Teknikum became part of SDU, and the Faculty of Engineering was established.

Some of our other roots come out of the Faculty of Science at the university: For instance, the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute, renamed so in 1997 after a large donation from the A.P. Møller Foundation, with a focus on robot control, applied mathematics and automation, and the Mads Clausen Institute established in 1999, with strong engagement from Danfoss and the region with focus on material science and mechatronics. The latter marked the beginning of a sustained expansion of engineering science in Sønderborg.

So, TEK has multiple roots in engineering education and science, and in close interaction with companies and the regions around us. These roots have grown together and today give us a multi-pronged heritage with many friends and partnerships.

Our research base has grown dramatically and now has a wide span underpinning all our educational activities and our interactions with companies and the wider society. We seek deep understanding and build on that. And we strive to address wicked societal challenges and to create that which does not yet exist.

We engage in fundamental curiosity-driven research and mission-inspired foundational research, in strategic research and in development and innovation. Entrepreneurship is an integral part of who we are and brings entirely new technologies into society.

The full chain from foundational research to entrepreneurship has, among other things, created one of Denmark’s strongest and most innovative industrial clusters: the robotics industry around Odense, which numbers more than 130 companies. Many, including global industrial leaders in that cluster, are spinouts from us. Others are spinouts from our spinouts, so we are de facto parents or grandparents to most of the cluster. And we underpin them with knowledge and graduates.

The span of our research gives us immense academic opportunities. We cherish colleagues who pursue fundamental questions whose eventual use cannot yet be foreseen, just as we laud colleagues working close to technological development, companies and societal challenges. And we benefit enormously when insights and people connect across that spectrum.

The same breadth is reflected in our education. Our students meet the newest knowledge emerging from research and develop the ability to create and invent. That combination has been present in different forms throughout our history and remains central to what we want our graduates to have and be capable of.

The anniversary gives us occasion to look back and appreciate where we came from and what was built by those before us: colleagues, students, companies, foundations, and many others who had ambitions for engineering education and research in our part of the world. Much of what we take for granted today exists because they had the courage and persistence to build something that did not yet exist.

It is now our responsibility to build on that. While happy about where we are today, our ambitions for engineering science at SDU reach much further. We have much more that we want to achieve.

But for now, Happy 60th anniversary, SDU!

All the best,

Henrik