The plans for DARA
The job posting for a Managing Director is out now, and we expect to have the first fellowship posting in June
Dear staff
The Novo Nordisk Foundation's grant to SDU of DKK 500 million for the establishment of the Danish Advanced Research Center (DARA) has resonated in the media and among colleagues throughout the country.
Not everyone has necessarily fully grasped, however, that this is a national investment in the PhD field. The many millions will go to all of the country's research environments within Life Science and Natural Sciences, while the secretariat will be organisationally anchored at our faculty.
There is no doubt that more communication is needed about DARA, and that is why we are already well underway. The first step is to assemble a board that can set the direction for DARA. The board will consist of representatives from universities, industry and foundations.
Next, a Managing Director must be appointed who can build up the secretariat. The secretariat will consist of five full-time equivalents to start with and will expand over the years to eight full-time equivalents as the number of PhD students increases.
The most important tasks for the secretariat will be handling applications for fellowships and building an ecosystem for the academic communities.
DARA will offer two types of PhD fellowships – open fellowships, which are based on the applicant's own ideas, and thematic fellowships.
The open fellowships will be similar to the previous faculty fellowships, which some may remember, where the individual student can apply for a project together with a supervisor. The topics for the thematic fellowships have been partly determined, but some still need to be defined, which will be a task for the board.
It is absolutely crucial for DARA that there will be a fair and transparent process in the selection of applicants. Here, the board will play a role in designing the process for assessing and selecting applicants.
Fellowship committees will consist exclusively of international researchers.
A key focus for DARA will be to build an attractive ecosystem for PhD students, their supervisors and the involved academic communities.
The secretariat will ensure the operation of the ecosystem, while a committee will be established to set direction and define the content of the activities in the DARA ecosystem. Here, we will initially draw on experience from the existing NNF-funded research academies and on colleagues at SDU who have been involved in these.
The academies have had great success in offering special courses and organizing conferences and workshops that have brought together the academic communities, and there is a lot of good experience that can be brought into DARA.
DARA differs from the existing researcg academies by covering the academic areas broadly. Therefore, the academy must also find new ways for collaboration across disciplines.
A major task and an exciting journey have begun. The first job posting is out now, and we therefore expect to be able to hire a Managing Director by the beginning of May.
We are currently doing our best to find a suitable date for the kick-off of DARA, which we expect to be in June at the same time as the first announcement of fellowships.
I hope that many will see opportunities in DARA, and that there will be a lot of applications from the Faculty of Science and SDU.
Marianne Holmer, dean