The initiative to affiliate recognised researchers from abroad with Health as honorary professors has led to a level of interest in the academic environments that the faculty management team now feels obliged to clarify the guidelines. The management also take the opportunity to name the initiative ‘Honorary Skou Professor' after Nobel Prize winner Jens Christian Skou, who will be a hundred years old this year.

2018.05.16 | Ulla Krag Jespersen

The first 25 Honorary Skou Professors should be in place for approval by the dean in October. The goal is to have named fifty Skou professors by the end of 2019. Photo: Health Communication

The faculty management team had barely announced that it wanted to strengthen the faculty’s international image with the awarding of honorary titles to recognised researchers from top universities abroad before the dean’s and the department heads’ phones and mail boxes began to light up.

The prospect of a formal collaboration with top researchers abroad has been so well received among the academic staff at Health that the faculty management has found it necessary to clarify the guidelines. At the same time, quotas are being introduced for how many honorary professors each department can name.

Must be top 100

The faculty management have underlined that only researchers who are currently professors on a top 100 QS World University Ranking or Guild can be named as Honorary Skou Professors. The candidate must be both a highly-regarded researcher in his or her field and also employed as a full professor at a university in his or her home country.

In addition, the candidate in question must utilise his or her academic profile to contribute to the academic activities at the department and be prepared to work actively for increased collaboration between the two institutions. This can e.g. be done by introducing international aspects into the teaching or by establishing academic networks that can lead to joint research projects and funding applications.

Finally, an equal gender balance must be ensured.

Contacts become champions

As a new initiative, each Skou professor will be assigned a contact person at the institute in the form of a so-called 'champion'. The contact person will be given a particularly prominent role in initiating academic collaboration and integrating the honorary professor in the research environment.

The first 25 Honorary Skou Professors should be in place for approval by the dean in October. The goal is to have named fifty Skou professors by the end of 2019, and to invite them together with their champions to an academic ceremony in the autumn of 2019.

The faculty management team has agreed on the following distribution of Skou professors:

• Department of Clinical Medicine: 24
• Department of Public Health: 10
• Department of Biomedicine: 9
• Department of Dentistry and Oral Health: 4
• Department of Forensic Medicine: 2
• CESU: 1

It is still possible to have affiliated foreign professors and associate professors, but not under this particular scheme, which among other things also provides DKK 20,000 to cover the department's expenses.

See the guidelines for awarding honorary Skou Professorships (in English)

See the guidelines for awarding honorary Skou Professorships (in Danish)

Contact

Vice-Dean Lise Wogensen Bach
Mail: lwb@au.dk
Mobile: 25 48 85 22