Establish an internal quality assurance system for applications for funding. Celebrate the faculty’s successes, and invest your efforts where the potential lies. These are some of the recommendations that the Advisory Board recently made to Health.

2016.10.12 | Sabina Bjerre Hansen

In addition to their recommendations to the departments, Health's international panel of advisors also had good suggestions on how the faculty's strategic challenges can be solved.

During the visit of Health's Advisory Board at the beginning of September, the individual, strategic challenges faced by the departments were top of the agenda. But the faculty as a whole also received some good advice along the way.

The quality of applications for funding should be improved

One recurring piece of advice concerned applications for funding. According to the members of the Advisory Board, it is necessary to adapt to a changed financing landscape. The quality of the applications must be improved, and more strategic efforts are needed.

The faculty management team has long focused on external research grants, and the ambition remains to improve applications and the work involved.

"We must succeed in this. We have launched several initiatives which are intended to lead to an increase in the number and also, hopefully, the size of the larger research grants that Health receives. An example of this is the introduction of ReAp throughout the entire faculty. In addition, we must consider whether an internal quality control system could also be a possibility, as was proposed at the meeting," says Vice-dean for Research, acting Dean Ole Steen Nielsen.

Prioritising of initiatives and resources necessary

Several of the members of Health's Advisory Board recommend that the faculty management team should prioritise and differentiate. The recommendation is particularly for a conscious and clear prioritisation of tasks and resources, though the management can also profit from differentiating its efforts and support for researchers and research groups.

"Invest your efforts where the potential is, and also show where there is underperformance," says Dean and Professor Mike Curtis from Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Prioritise and differentiate. Open up – not only towards the outside world or the students, but also towards yourself. What do you want for the faculty; what makes this faculty unique; and who do you want to be? Know about the faculty's assets, and decide which of them you want to keep," is the message from Professor Jaap Verveij from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

"Be conscious of what you as the management make visible, and what you with your statements, actions and priorities communicate to the organisation. Symbols are important - who gets the access, power and resources?" asks Klara Bolander Laksov, associate professor from Stockholm University.

Now the local work begins

Following the meeting with the Advisory Board, the department heads will continue to work on the specific recommendations for the departments on a local level.

Later in the year, the faculty management team will revisit to the recommendations, including the two central themes, which were this time strategic networking and opening the study programmes to the world around us. 

What is the Advisory Board?

The Advisory Board at Health was established in 2012 and comprises 14 external members from various subject areas and interests in the fields of health science research, teaching, talent development and knowledge exchange.

The Advisory Board advises Health on issues such as the faculty’s strategy and development. In this way, it contributes to ongoing quality assurance of the activities carried out at the faculty.

Read more in the article "The Advisory Board will provide advice to the departments".

Read the entire summary of the meeting with the Advisory Board (in Danish). Here, you will also find the members' advice to the departments.