Dear All,   It almost feels as if the year is ending as it began - the number of infections is rising and rising, the home offices came back in use, and the Christmas party had to be canceled again. But luckily we are soon moving towards brighter times. After all, it makes a small difference.

2022.01.04 | Siri Beier Jensen

Head of department Siri Beier Jensen

RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND TEACHING

The new bachelor's degree program in Odontology has been approved
The dean's office at Health has approved the new curriculum for the bachelor's program in Odontology, and this means that we can start admitting students to the new scheme from the autumn semester 2022. The consultation responses called for us to make visible the elements of the program that contribute to students' digital understanding. We have taken note of this, and therefore the academic environments are now designing learning objectives within digital understanding, which must be included in the bachelor part's clinical courses at the 4th, 5th and 6th semester.

It has been a huge, years-long effort for many of you, and in the final phase with additional pressure on top due to COVID-19 teaching reorganisations.

Thank you to all of you who have contributed to the development - it is a visionary bachelor's education of high quality, which I am very proud of and look forward to starting the implementation of, although it will also be a big task for us.

The sub-project group is now working on the master's study program for Odontology, which the graduates from the new bachelor's study program can continue on in 2025.

It is incredible work by the sub-project group and an important step for The Aarhus Model of Dental Education.

New courses and sparring offers for teachers in the spring
In the spring, Aarhus University's Center for Educational Development (CED) offers a number of courses and workshops for lecturers across the university. The courses take place both physically and online, and the offers cover everything from introduction to the Panopto platform and video-assisted teaching and to individual sparring on how to organize modules so that they become more student-activating or in line with the learning objectives. See the list of course offers from the Center for Educational Development

Here are tips and inspiration for grabbing the big grants
In December, the faculty hosted four inspirational meetings that were to make us wiser about how we write good fund applications and thus increase the chance of getting funding from e.g. EU and the Innovation Fund.

If you did not have the opportunity to participate, you can read the most important points and get good advice from three of the meetings in the articles below:

• Search for EU clusters: "Here are the most important points from Tuesday's meeting on fund application"
• Search for the Innovation Fund (Grand Solutions): "Describe your idea so that a 14-year-old can understand it"
• Search for ERC (Starting Grants and Consolidator Grants): "Vice Dean: Health must take home more ERC grants"

The points from the fourth and final meeting, which is about Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, can be found on the faculty's website at the beginning of the new year. Also read more about the purpose of the inspiration meetings in the article "How to write the best fund application".

New exchange agreements with Oslo are (perhaps) on the way
At the beginning of December, we sent a small delegation to the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Oslo (UiO), as we are mutually interested in making an exchange agreement that gives our students the opportunity to take a semester in Norway - and vice versa. An exchange agreement is both realistic and promising - especially for our dental students and perhaps already from the autumn semester 2022, but we are also working on making it possible for our dental hygienist students.

The University of Oslo is a sought-after partner, as they - like Aarhus University - are part of the high-priority Circle U. collaboration to strengthen European university collaboration. Head of Studies for Dentistry Irene Dige, Head of Studies for the dental hygienist and clinical dental technician educations Lene Meilstrup Martinussen, educational leader for the dental hygienist and clinical dental technician educations Ulla Bæk Lindtoft, associate professor Eduardo Castrillon (online) and international coordinator Rikke Præstegaard from the Study Administration were present in Oslo, and we plan to be visited in May 2022 by representatives from UiO.

The IOOS Summer School closes
Since 2003, we have had a summer school with many well-attended courses at a high academic level. The last time was in 2019, after which corona put the summer school activities on pause. The break has given room for reflection, and it has become clear how large and resource-intensive a task it is to plan and run the summer courses, especially in light of the ongoing revision of our educations. Therefore, we have sadly decided to close the IOOS summer school and thus no longer offer qualifying courses during the summer period. We are considering whether we will in the long run offer, for example, clinical courses in the unique facilities we have in the house. Thank you to the teachers and the administrative staff who have lifted the task over the years and special thanks to Helle Hornhaver, who in an exemplary way has been in charge of the entire summer school.

The simulation clinic will be open ‘after hours’ for students
As something new, we will keep the simulation clinic SIM2 open every Tuesday from 16-20, where two student assistants are ready to guide the students who make use of the offer. It has long been a wish of the students themselves that they be given the opportunity to practice outside the regular teaching hours. It is great that we can now fulfill that wish. We are evaluating the scheme in June next year.

NEWS ABOUT NAMES

Research grants to the department
There is good news and great congratulations to three of our researchers who have applied for and been granted funding for their projects:

• Associate Professor Golnoush Bahrami Møller, Section for Prosthetics, has received almost DKK 70,000 from the Danish Dental Association for the project ‘Dental zirconia - 10-year clinical longitudinal examination and in-vitro binding strength study’.
• Postdoc Anne Birkeholm Jensen, Section for Pedodontics, has also received just over DKK 48,000 from the Danish Dental Association for the project ‘Amoxicillin-metronidazole combination disk for antimicrobial sensitivity testing of oral bacteria’.
• Yumi Chokyu Del Rey, Section for Oral Ecology and Caries Control, has received a fully funded PhD scholarship of DKK 1,650,000 from the faculty of Health. The PhD project is entitled ‘The effects of non-biocidal enzymatic plaque control on the oral microbiome and the microscale architecture of dental biofilms’.

Best Christmas and New Year greetings,

Siri