At a board meeting on 8 October, the AU board gave the green light to establish four new engineering departments at the university. The purpose of the new organisation is to consolidate the academic environments across Aarhus University School of Engineering and the Department of Engineering. The new departments will open on 1 January 2021.

2020.10.08 | Tina Fruelund

A new organisation to consolidate and strengthen engineering at AU. This was the proposal from the dean of the Faculty of Technical Sciences before the summer holidays, and it has generally been met with considerable support from the consultation parties, who could submit their comments up to 1 September. The consultation responses were included in the decision-making basis for the final decision that has now been taken by the AU board.

"I'm very pleased that the board supports our visions for engineering at AU, and I'm looking forward to getting down to work on making our visions a reality," says Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen.

In parallel with the consultation process, from June to September an involvement process for employees has been run through working groups. Employees have been able to make their own contribution to the development of the work processes in the new departments and to ensure effective collaboration between the new institutes. Each working group has submitted their recommendations to the Dean's office.

“The staff know most about day-to-day life at the faculty, and they are a vital part of developing the new departments. The recommendations submitted therefore function as a basis to verify how we can plan the upcoming establishment process in more detail. I’d like to thank all the participants in the working groups for their contributions and their great commitment, both of which confirm their high degree of professionalism," says Eskild Holm Nielsen.

Establishment of four new departments

On the basis of the recommendations from the working groups, and the comments received during the consultation process, the Dean's Office will prepare an implementation plan for the organisation of the new departments.

So far, all that has been finalised is the names of the departments and these outline the academic delimitation. From 1 January 2021, the departments will be:

·        Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering

·        Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

·        Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering

·        Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering

The overall framework for the four departments, and the future organisation and appointments, will be presented at the end of October, and as soon as possible thereafter staff will receive formal notification of which department they will be employed in from 1 January 2021.

To ensure that the four new departments can get off to a good start on meeting our shared vision for the engineering initiative, there will be a temporary management team for both academic and administrative staff at each of the four departments from 1 January.