The Rectorate’s Column
SDU becomes the Region of Southern Denmark’s university – and turns 25!
On 14 November, the Rectorate informed SDU’s staff, students and external stakeholders that unfortunately we have been forced to phase out the University’s activities in Slagelse. The final year group of SDU students in Slagelse started their studies in September 2023, and from the summer of 2027 SDU will no longer have full-time students in West Zealand.
In many ways, it was a bleak day. Many good people have worked hard for many years to ensure quality education programmes and research in Slagelse, but sharply declining admissions and a beleaguered economy have taken their toll. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of you – none mentioned, none forgotten – who have contributed to the university education of many young people in West Zealand in the years since 2007. Your efforts have made a great difference for many people.
The closure of the activities in Slagelse also means that in the future the University of Southern Denmark will – in very real terms – become the Region of Southern Denmark’s university. We will also have a strong research presence in Copenhagen in the future – in the form of the National Institute of Public Health (SIF) – and we will also continue to have many employees at the hospitals east of the Great Belt. But when it comes to daytime studies and full-time education, we will consolidate our position in the Region of Southern Denmark. We will always be globally oriented – every serious university has to be – but we are now becoming even more clearly anchored in the Region of Southern Denmark.
With the decision to wind down SDU’s activities in Slagelse, 2023 will mark the end of a significant chapter in the University’s history. But 2023 is also the year when the University of Southern Denmark turns 25. In 1998, SDU came into existence via a merger between the University of Odense, Business School South/School of Engineering South and Sydjysk University Centre.
We will mark this event on Thursday 30 November with a debate and a reception, to which we have invited a number of interesting presenters to both look back in history as well as suggest what the future might hold for SDU.
