Focus on students' awareness of own competencies
Students want the ability to tackle global challenges, but lack awareness of the many relevant competencies they already have
Dear staff
Spring is coming, and that always helps the mood. The universities are still kept in suspense about new reforms and the new finance law. After all, quite large changes are planned, and this causes concern throughout the sector. There are still many opinions from both universities and businesses shared in various media, which warn the government against introducing 1-year master's programs and, conversely, call for us to admit international students. We must hope that the government listens to the sector.
In the previous few months, we have worked on our own strategy and discussed priorities for 2023. Thank you for the constructive consultation responses from committees and departments, which can be seen on the faculty's website for the strategy. Efforts are being continued around our education programs with a focus on competence awareness and the rollout of the competence portfolio.
Most recently, we discussed the need for competences within sustainability and climate change, adaptation and mitigation. The students demand to be equipped to deal with global issues after graduation, but lack awareness that they actually learn a great deal about these topics during their studies at the faculty.
On the one hand, we have a number of specific courses in climate and sustainability, and the topics are also touched on in many other courses. It is important that the students become aware of these skills, and I would encourage all teachers to emphasize these in teaching.
Within research, in the coming years the focus will be on collaboration with SUND and OUH. Efforts are being made at many levels to increase collaboration, including the recent call for research within flagship centres. Very soon there will be an opportunity to apply for Discovery funds, where researchers across SDU and OUH can join forces to develop project ideas.
As a result of the boring development in global geopolitics, SDU has joined the National Center for Defense Technology, which was opened at AAU on 8 February. Here, IMADA and FKF in particular are expected to contribute.
We continue to contribute to the external funding strategy at SDU, where new initiatives are continuously coming to support the development of projects and the submission of applications. All this is communicated through ERT's newsletter.
I will not fail to note that it is going really well with taking home funds for super exciting research projects. Most recently, one of our researchers at BMB has received an ERC Starting Grant. It's just so nice that it worked out.
Big congratulations to Kumar Somyajit and to BMB.
Marianne Holmer, dean