By Ida Hammerich Nielson
ihn@adm.au.dk
Aarhus University has recently launched what it calls a “subject development” process, which will probably lead to fundamental changes in the university’s structure.
One of the provisional benchmarks of the process is that the nine main academic areas (Aarhus University’s term for faculties) should be reduced to between three and five. The number of institutes and centres will also be reduced considerably. One of the aims of slimming down the university is to get researchers and degree programmes to collaborate more efficiently across the old borders that used to separate the institutes and faculties.
Two international consultants are helping to facilitate this process of development at Aarhus University. One of them is the British professor and consultant Quentin Thompson, who has worked with the process of change at universities all over the world, and the other is Sachi Hatakenaka.
What’s your role in this process?
Our job is to spot what you do well, what you could do better, and not least how you can improve. We can help by providing an external angle on Aarhus University. Some of the things you do here are based on tradition (“That’s how we’ve always done things in Aarhus”, you might say). Which is why it’s a good idea for outside experts to come along occasionally and ask questions about the way you do things.
What have you done so far?
We’ve been in Aarhus twice before and spoken to about 60 people: deans, heads of department, the vice-chancellor’s office, academics and administrative staff. We asked them about their jobs, which gave us a good idea of the way the university works. Then we went home and did some thinking, and now we’re back in Aarhus to test our ideas on the same people.
Can you give us an example of these ideas?
It’s a problem that the students here find it hard to combine various subjects at the university. These days the labour market is looking increasingly for inter-disciplinary skills – but Aarhus University and other Danish universities are lagging behind in this respect. If Aarhus University is to be a world-class teaching institution, you need to keep up with the changes taking place in teaching in the rest of the world. At the moment you are not competing globally as far as education is concerned. The question is why this is the case and what you can do to change it.
You’ve changed countless universities all over the world. How is Aarhus University different?
I don’t know any other universities that have been through so many mergers simultaneously. These mergers make the process of change different and harder. The big question is how you can organise the university to ensure that you get the most out of all the subject areas that are to be found here. The size of the mergers makes it vital for Aarhus University to think about its identity. The mergers shouldn’t just involve incorporating new units or reorganising the university – they also give the university a clear opportunity to reinvent itself.
