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We look at human capital as one of the quiet engines behind the rise of capitalism. Capitalism did not grow solely from markets or technology, but from societies that found ways to build, organise, and reward skill. We explore how historians and economists measure human capital across time, how literacy, schooling, training, and mobility reshaped labour markets, and how these long-run changes underpinned the shift to modern capitalist economies. By placing Denmark alongside other European cases, we will trace how different human-capital regimes contributed to divergent paths of development. Denmark’s blend of early mass education, civic culture, and later vocational and tertiary expansion offers a revealing window into how capitalism takes root, adapts, and endures. Keynotes and Panel Debate: The Educational Engine of Capitalism? DIAS Seminar Room https://clients.mapsindoors.com/sdu/573f26e4bc1f571b08094312/details/e425d304749e408282ae100e13:00-13:05       Welcome, Paul Sharp, DIAS/SDU13:05-13:35       Francesco Cinnirella, University of Bergamo, “Education, Technological Progress, and the Industrial Revolution”13:35-14:05       Gregory Clark, DIAS/SDU, “The Causal Effect of Education in Industrial Revolution England 1754-1889”14:05-14:35       Patrick Wallis, LSE, “Human capital and occupational skills in development”14:35-15:00       Panel discussion with Cinnirella, Clark & Wallis

De nye læreplaner i matematik er trådt i kraft - men hvad betyder de egentlig for undervisningen og elevernes læring?

Speaker: Thomas Klein Kvorning (​KTH Royal Institute of Technology). Abstract: Simulating quantum many-body systems is fundamentally challenging because quantum states encode correlations that cannot be decomposed into local parts, leading to an exponential growth of required resources with system size. Yet physical observables are typically local: they are fully determined by density matrices of small subsystems. This raises a central question: can local density matrices be time-evolved without explicitly tracking long-range correlations? In this talk, I address this question using the framework of the information lattice, a scale-resolved decomposition of the information content of a quantum state. This construction provides a precise notion of where information resides in a quantum system, both in space and across length scales, and thereby offers a diagnostic of how correlations build up dynamically. I will show how this perspective reveals regimes in which local degrees of freedom are exactly decoupled from long-range entanglement, as well as how it can guide the development of approximate numerical methods for ab initio simulation of condensed matter systems.

The inability to spend beyond one's means -- the need to live within one's budget -- is economics' most fundamental law. It applies to entire economies as well as their household and government sectors. Official debt is presumed to signal government budget violations. But official debt measures only those obligations governments choose to label 'official'. Moreover, this labeling choice has no basis in economic science, whose equations don't direct their description.Thus, official debt is a matter of linguistics, not economics. Any country's past, present, and future fiscal policy can be relabeled to produce any past, present, and future values of official debt. In short, government debt is no better grounded in reality than the emperor's new clothes. If official debt is a number in search of a concept, how should we assess a country's fiscal sustainability? Economics' answer is the fiscal gap -- the imbalance in the government's intertemporal budget. The US fiscal gap now exceeds 7 percent of annual GDP.Closing the gap requires either raising all taxes by 26 percent or cutting all non-interest spending by 23 percent -- on an immediate and permanent basis. Such adjustments are politically infeasible. What can work is radical reform of healthcare, Social Security, taxes, and welfare.

Speaker: Julio C. Magdalena de la Fuente (Freie Universität Berlin).Abstract: Topological quantum error correction encodes quantum information in the ground space of a topologically ordered lattice system or in the fusion space of topological defects. In this talk I will focus on the former. To use such codes for reliable quantum computation, one must design low-overhead circuits that protect and manipulate the encoded information in a fault-tolerant way.I will start with presenting simple protocols based on two-dimensional topological codes that are composed of 2D local gates. Representing these protocols as tensor networks local in a 3D spacetime lattice leads to a useful viewpoint. We identify a topological QEC circuit with an imaginary-time topological path integral of a topological gauge theory. Within this picture, both physical errors and non-trivial measurement outcomes appear as certain defects in the path integral and their combinatorial structure defines the associated classical decoding problem.I will go through the construction of logically non-trivial fault-tolerant gates using topological boundaries and domain walls between topological phases. In order to perform universal computation a non-Abelian state must be stabilized during the computation. The path-integral perspective allows to calculate the logical action and extract the resulting causality constraints on the classical decoder that is needed to make the protocols resilient to arbitrary errors. It also provides an efficient way to simulate the success of a given decoding strategy using Monte-Carlo sampling based on third-order cohomology invariants of the underlying spacetime complex. I want to introduce the necessary ingredients to construct and analyze such QEC protocols for their performance and argue about their reliable implementation in the presence of errors.

Speaker: Olga Solodovnikova (University of Southern Denmark).Abstract: In this seminar, I will introduce continuous quantum variables [1], which are used to describe systems of oscillators, that is, systems with infinite Hilbert spaces such as photonic systems or the vibrational motion of trapped ions. To build a universal and fault-tolerant quantum computer with a continuous-variable system, it is necessary to encode a qubit in an oscillator, perform gates from the universal gate set, and measure stabilisers to implement error correction.  In the second part of the introductory seminar, I will introduce the measurement-based quantum computing framework for optical systems, in which Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states are injected into a cluster state, and homodyne/heterodyne detectors are used to i) apply gates via teleportation and ii) measure stabilisers [2]. Lastly, I will discuss the experimental progress on building a measurement-based quantum computer [3], where, in particular, the generation of GKP states [4] is a major bottleneck due to photon loss. [1] Braunstein and van Loock. “Quantum Information with Continuous Variables.” Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, no. 2 (2005).[2] Gottesman, et al. “Encoding a Qubit in an Oscillator.” Physical Review A 64, no. 1 (2001): 012310. [3] Aghaee Rad, H., T. Ainsworth, R. N. Alexander, et al. “Scaling and Networking a Modular Photonic Quantum Computer.” Nature 638, no. 8052 (2025): 912–19. [4] Larsen, M. V., J. E. Bourassa, S. Kocsis, et al. “Integrated Photonic Source of Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill Qubits.” Nature 642, no. 8068 (2025): 587–91.

Speaker: Olga Solodovnikova (University of Southern Denmark).Abstract: In this research seminar, I will discuss techniques for simulating continuous-variable circuits, which typically fall into two categories: phase-space simulation (Gaussian), and Fock-space simulation. I will present the methodology behind a CV circuit simulation library, which I developed during my PhD, which extends the Gaussian representation to systems that can be written as linear combinations of Gaussians. By approximating Fock states as superpositions of coherent states, any finite-energy CV state can be represented in this formalism. Furthermore, the complexity of this algorithm scales with the stellar rank of the non-Gaussian circuit elements. In the two manuscripts, I showcase the library by simulating and optimising GKP state preparation circuits in the presence of loss. Having said that, the formalism is applicable to any continuous-variable system. [1] Solodovnikova et al. “Fast Simulations of Continuous-Variable Circuits Using the Coherent State Decomposition.” arXiv:2508.06175 [quant-ph][2] Solodovnikova et al. “The Loss Tolerance of Cat Breeding for Fault-Tolerant Grid State Generation.” arXiv:2508.06193 [quant-ph]

Kom og vær med til 2 x 20 min. inspirerende foredrag, mens du nyder en gratis "afslappet after-work" øl med dine medstuderende, kollega eller lærer.Til denne IMADA Talk kan du møde postdoc Serhii Petrovych (emne: From Classroom to Living Lab: Rethinking STEM Learning through Sustainability Projects) og lektor Fabian Haiden (emne: Counting Problems: from Billiards to Quantum States).

Kageklubben er et nyt og hyggeligt initiativ, der samles fire gange hvert semester med gratis kaffe, kage og godt fællesskab.Så uanset om du studerer AI, Anvendt Matematik, Datalogi, Matematik eller Matematik-Økonomi, er du inviteret.Huske at tage dine studiekammerater med (undervisere er også velkomne).Klubmøderne holdes på IMADA Forskertorv.Læs evt. mere på Facebook-gruppen IMADA-students.

Speaker: Ben Brown (IBM).Abstract: TBA

The Russian offensive against Ukraine that began in February 2022 signaled the end of a three-decade-long period of great-power peace and the beginning of an era marked by a new Cold War or even resurrecting the possibility of a hot war. China’s goal of achieving global hegemony in the coming decades, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), asymmetric technological superiority, and the militarization of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, is generating conflict, though of a different kind than that seen during the Cold War. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a crusade against the international economic and political order by imposing very high tariffs on friends and foes alike in the hope of obtaining primacy. All the great powers are seeking “spheres of influence,” undercutting norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity. How do resurgent great-power conflicts affect peace and peaceful change in regions such as Europe, Asia, and the Middle East? What new tools do we need to explain patterns of regional order and the impact of systemic rivalries on these orders and vice versa? BioT.V. Paul is Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal, Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He served as the President of International Studies Association (ISA) for 2016-17. He is the Founding Director of the Global Research Network on Peaceful Change (GRENPEC) and a Distinguished Scholar at Asia-Pacific Foundation, Canada. Paul is the author or editor of 24 books, co-editor of 6 special journal issues, and author of over 90 scholarly articles/book chapters in the fields of International Relations, Peace & Peaceful Change, International Security, and South Asia. He is the author of the books: The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi (Oxford University Press, 2024); Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era (Yale University Press, 2018); The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World (Oxford University Press, 2013); Globalization and the National Security State (with N. Ripsman, Oxford University Press, 2010); The Tradition of Non-use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford University Press, 2009); India in the World Order: Searching for Major Power Status (with B.R. Nayar Cambridge University Press, 2002); Power versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000); and Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge University Press, 1994).  He is the lead editor of the Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2021). Paul currently serves as the editor of the Georgetown University Press book series: South Asia in World Affairs. The several awards he has received include: the inaugural Kim Dae-jung Award by the International Political Science Association (IPSA), 2025 (named after former South Korean President and Nobel Laureate for Peace); the 2024 International Studies Association (ISA)-Canada Distinguished Scholar Award and the 2025 ISA-International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. For more, see: www.tvpaul.com

Kageklubben er et nyt og hyggeligt initiativ, der samles fire gange hvert semester med gratis kaffe, kage og godt fællesskab.Så uanset om du studerer AI, Anvendt Matematik, Datalogi, Matematik eller Matematik-Økonomi, er du inviteret.Huske at tage dine studiekammerater med (undervisere er også velkomne).Klubmøderne holdes på IMADA Forskertorv.Læs evt. mere på Facebook-gruppen IMADA-students.

Abdullah Akgül forsvarer sin ph.d.-afhandling ved et offentligt foredrag: “Probabilistic Reinforcement Learning for Sample-Efficient Control”.Professor Arthur Zimek vil være ordstyrer ved arrangementet. Ph.d.-forsvaret finder sted i U181 (Ø22-601b-2).Alle er velkomne.

Hvordan bruger SDU-studerende AI-chatbots som personlige læringsværktøjer – og hvordan kan undervisere i naturfag guide studerende til en meningsfuld og fagligt relevant anvendelse?

Årets tema er FROM COGNITION TO CAPACITY: Foundations of Empowering Knowledge. Konferencen fokuserer på hvordan handlekraft opstår gennem viden, og hvordan denne handlekraft kan styrkes og understøttes gennem tværfagligt og tværsektorielt samarbejde.

Årets tema er FROM COGNITION TO CAPACITY: Foundations of Empowering Knowledge. Konferencen fokuserer på hvordan handlekraft opstår gennem viden, og hvordan denne handlekraft kan styrkes og understøttes gennem tværfagligt og tværsektorielt samarbejde.

What if communication were not just something humans do, but a process through which all kinds of beings—molecules, machines, institutions, emotions, organisms, laws, and people—come to express themselves and make a difference? Drawing on my forthcoming book, “Thinking the World Communicatively: An Exploration of the More or Less,” this talk introduces a way of approaching reality that transcends the traditional boundaries between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. I propose that to think communicatively is to examine how relations allow phenomena to manifest themselves more or less in the world. Communication, in this broad sense, encompasses electromagnetic radiation warming our skin, neurons firing, procedures shaping institutional conduct, technologies guiding attention, and people coordinating with one another. Instead of reducing the world to discourse or matter, this communicative ontology highlights how beings both act and “pass through” others. It offers scientists, scholars, and students an anti-reductionist framework for understanding truth, objectivity, materiality, agency, and power across domains, from social interaction to quantum mechanics.BiographyFrançois Cooren (PhD, Université de Montréal, 1996) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Université de Montréal, Canada. His research focuses on organizational communication, language and social interaction, as well as communication theory. He is the Past President of the International Communication Association (ICA, 2010–2011), the Past President of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA, 2012–2021), and former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Communication Theory (2005–2008). He was elected ICA Fellow in 2013, NCA (National Communication Association) Distinguished Scholar in 2017, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024. He published 16 books (four as an author or co-author and twelve as an editor or co-editor) and authored close to 100 peer-reviewed articles and more than 60 book chapters. He is one of the founding members of what is now known as the Montreal School of Organizational Communication, a primary branch of the Communication as Constitutive of Organization (CCO) approach.

Modern capitalism is often associated with faceless institutional investors and dispersed ownership, but globally family ownership is, by far, the most common form of ownership. But what is “family capitalism”, and how are family businesses and their varieties best studied and understood? Program: Jeppe Nevers (SDU): IntroductionMorten Bennedsen (Copenhagen): The state of economic research on family businessesAndrew Popp (CBS): Family capitalism in business historyKristoffer Jensen (Grundfos): The use of history in family businessesLouise Skyggebjerg & Anders Ravn Sørensen (CBS): Grønbech – a family-owned business through 200 yearsPanel (chair: Paul Sharp)

Adelina conducted a teaching experiment using figure construction to make student reasoning explicit and support integrative understanding of metabolic pathways.

Polarization is one of the major challenges internationally. But what does polarization look like in the Nordic countries? The Nordic welfare states are built on a high degree of mutual trust, yet affective and identity-based polarization in particular can generate antipathy toward our fellow citizens, foster conspiracy theories and hate speech, and, in the worst case, undermine the much‑celebrated Nordic trust.In the POLIS project, we examine through an interdisciplinary humanities-based approach how affective and identity-based polarization unfolds outside traditional political debate: in everyday public discourse, on social media, in art and culture, and in our relationships with fellow citizens in Denmark and the Nordic region more broadly. This Wild Wednesday presents selected insights from the project and explores how polarization shapes everyday aesthetics and art, promotes public moralism, and functions as a central dynamic in conspiracy theories. Program [list][*]Anders Engberg-Pedersen - introduction  – 10 min[*]Kathrin Maurer – 15 min[*]Anne-Marie Søndergaard  – 10 min[*]Kasper Grotle Rasmussen  – 10 min[*]Q\&A - 15 minutes[/list]

On the occasion of Ekin Demir’s attachment as adjunct professor of genome biology at the Department of Molecular Medicine, SDU, the Faculty of Health Sciences hereby invites you to attend a mini symposium and inaugural lecture.

On the occasion of Ekin Demir’s attachment as adjunct professor of genome biology at the Department of Molecular Medicine, SDU, the Faculty of Health Sciences hereby invites you to attend a mini symposium and inaugural lecture.

About the talk:Our ability to shape materials at the nanoscale opens new possibilities for, among other things, rapid diagnostics and smart medication. I will give examples from our research that encompass both new discoveries and startup stories.In the treatment of leukemia and sepsis, there is a need for therapeutic monitoring of drug concentrations in patients’ blood. Silicon structures at the nanometer scale can have surprising optical properties. For example, they can enhance the so-called Raman scattering more than a million times. This effect can be used to perform very sensitive measurements of small molecules in a complex blood sample.Our vision is that in the future we can ‘swallow our doctor’. Ingestible capsules can be made smart so that they can eventually measure, take samples, and perform local repairs/medication in the stomach and intestines. Can this be done without also having to swallow a battery, and how do you take a sample from the intestines?About the speaker:Anja Boisen is head of section and professor at the Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark. Her research group focuses on the development and application of nano-sensors, energy harvesting in the body, and ingestible devices for sensing, sampling, and delivery. Anja is a cofounder of several companies and is, among others, a member of the board of the Leo Foundation, the Danish Academy of the Technical Sciences, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences. She has been awarded the largest research prize in Denmark, the Villum Kann Rasmussen Award, and the Order of Dannebrog by Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark.

“Unearthed”: Where Science Becomes SoundCan approx. 4.5 billion years of Earth's deep history be transformed into acoustic music? Composer Signe Lykke has created a new piece for string quartet. Drawing on Earth System Science, the work translates the planet’s intertwined biological, chemical, and geological processes into music as part of her three year residency with Bloom festival in Copenhagen.The residency brings contemporary classical music into dialogue with natural science, exploring the phenomenon of memory through three scientific perspectives: hologenomics, geoscience, and astrophysics.Over the course of the residency, Lykke is creating three new works that explore scale across duration, instrumentation, and scientific framework.The residency fosters a close knit co-creative process working with scientists from different fields. In conversation with these specialists the pieces slowly grow informed by data, specific evolutionary parameters, archival findings, the behavior of microorganisms, graphics ect.Lensed through music this is an interdisciplinary research driven project with a boundary pushing and genre bending agenda. It fosters hybrid forms of research and co-creation that challenge the boundaries of accustomed knowledge, both in science and art. She will present the work "Unearthed" and offer insights into the compositional process, collaborative framework, and the various modes of musical translation involved. About Signe Moslund Lykke Signe Lykke is a multiple award-winning Danish composer, with a masters degree from Trinity Conservatoire of Music in London and College of Fine Arts in Austin, Texas as well as an advanced graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in Århus.Signe Lykke has composed music for a broad array of ensembles and soloists, including large-scale interdisciplinary works such as the opera Nordkraft, the dance piece Leaning Tree, the interactive light installation Living Room by Random International, and an opera trilogy by the artist collective Motherboard.Upcoming projects include a new violin concerto for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, a new work for soprano Barbara Hannigan, a site-specific orchestral work for the Rued Langgaard Festival and a song cycle for aging voices and baroque orchestra. This event is hosted and organized by DIAS Chair Don Canfield

Abstract: Since the second World War, we have entered the era of ‘Big Science’. Research is now often conducted at a scale well beyond of what one individual, or even one research lab can manage. Such large experiments tend to require financial support from one or more government agencies over extended periods of time—often even several decades. Because of this increase in costs, scientists have had to change how they decide what experiments to pursue, since only a small number of large-scale experiments will be funded at any given time, and what experiments are pursued can determine the future of scientific research. In this talk, I want to give a start at investigating what makes an experiment more worthy to pursue compared to other experiments, especially in the era of Big Science. Short Bio: My primary interests lie in history and philosophy of cosmology and astrophysics, and general philosophy of science. I received my PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 2020, before joining the philosophy department at Stockholm University. In 2025, I received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council for a project on collective decision-making on future large-scale experiments in cosmology and astrophysics. My Cambridge Element, Philosophy of Cosmology and Astrophysics, was published in 2025.

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The Future of Health Depends on RehabilitationRehabilitation has long been under-prioritized in health systems, even as the global demand for these services rises sharply and far outpaces what is currently offered. Funding models often fail to support rehabilitation adequately, despite its essential role in universal health coverage, healthy aging, and equitable care. The WHO’s resolution on Strengthening Rehabilitation in Health Systems, the Rehabilitation 2030 initiative, and the World Rehabilitation Alliance (WRA) signal a global shift toward addressing this urgent gap. Dr. Côté will examine how health services and policy research can shape responsive policies, drawing on the work of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Rehabilitation and Musculoskeletal Health at the Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research. He will also highlight why generating robust data on the value of rehabilitation, its impact on population health, work productivity, and quality of life for aging adults is critical to support governments in making informed investments in integrated, sustainable rehabilitation services.About Pierre CôtéPierre Côté is a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ontario Tech University. Côté is an epidemiologist who holds the Hann-Kelly Family Chair in Disability and Rehabilitation Research. From 2013-2023, he held the prestigious Canada Research Chair in Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation. Côté is the founding Director of the Institute for Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation (IDRR), a leading international research hub which aims to improve the functioning and quality of life of people with disability or in need of rehabilitation. He is the inaugural Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on Rehabilitation and Musculoskeletal Health. Professor Côté currently serves Lead of The Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Group. Dr. Côté holds appointments at international universities. He is a Professor of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; Adjunct Professor of Disability Prevention at Southern Denmark University; Honorary Professor of Physiotherapy at MGM Institute of Health Sciences, India, and Visiting Professor of Health Promotion Sciences at Sophiahemment University, Sweden.  Throughout his career, Côté has published more than 420 peer-reviewed papers. His current Scopus h-index is 71. Throughout his career, Professor Côté has supervised more than 50 master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral trainees.This event is hosted and organized by DIAS Chair Jan Hartvigsen

Experts worry that support and tolerance for political violence and violent extremist actors is on the rise in the United States.  Is this true?  If so, what might explain why more Americans view political violence to be acceptable? Finally, what can be done to stem the tide of support for political violence in the U.S. and perhaps elsewhere.  In this lecture I present some of my findings over several years of public opinion research on political violence in the United StatesJames A. Piazza is a Liberal Arts professor of Political Science whose research focuses on terrorism, political violence, and violent extremism in the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics from New York University, an M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Political Science from Loyola University Chicago. Piazza’s work examines how democratic processes, demographic change, and extremist ideologies shape patterns of political violence. His research has been published in leading journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Security Studies, and Political Research Quarterly, and he is widely recognized for his comparative studies of left‑wing, right‑wing, and Islamist extremism.

Vil du fortælle om din virksomhed, møde motiverede studerende, undersøge samarbejdsmuligheder, støtte life science-miljøet på SDU eller udvide dit faglige netværk? Så deltag i Life Science Totaldag d. 6. oktober 2026 på SDU i Odense.

Vil du fortælle om din virksomhed, møde motiverede studerende, undersøge samarbejdsmuligheder, støtte life science-miljøet på SDU eller udvide dit faglige netværk? Så deltag i Life Science Totaldag d. 6. oktober 2026 på SDU i Odense.

Student Collaboration Day er de studerendes mulighed for at møde virksomheder og skabe dialog om muligheden for at samarbejde under deres studie. Kom med d. 6. oktober 2026!

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