HoD News - 24 August

Dear colleagues,

I hope you have had a nice summer vacation. Welcome back, and in particular, welcome to new faculty, staff and PhD students. Hopefully, I will see most of you at the Friday Get-Together tomorrow afternoon.

Educations

Yet another new academic year is about to begin and a quiet buzzing has re-emerged in the office hallways. This week we are welcoming more than 900 new Bachelor’s students on Campus Fuglesangs Allé as well as our new Master’s level students. Across our educations, we have seen an increase in applications, and compared to last year more students have accepted the offer of enrollment. This is good news and confirms that our study programmes are very attractive.

As you know, the university education landscape is under change. We look forward to the developments during the coming months. It is expected that the framework for the negotiations regarding length and structure of the Master’s programmes will become public very soon. The full process is expected to end by October 2024.

External funding and a new research center, CoRE

Thanks to your efforts, the department has been successful in attracting several external research grants over the past months. Meanwhile, I have negotiated with the energy trading company InCommodities about sponsoring a research center at the department, and I am glad to share the news that InCommodities has agreed to donate DKK 25 million for the period 2024-2028 to establish, Center for Research in Energy: Economics and Markets, CoRE in short. The research center will focus on quantitative research and modelling in energy economics, including climate and environmental economics, and should be seen as a strategic action area for research and educations at ECON for the coming years. The center will have participants from all sections of the department and will strive to attract further external research funding from various sources. Within the coming weeks, I will share more information and details about the establishment of the center, and I will invite you for discussions about the organization, the inclusion of center members, etc.

New head of department

As a consequence of the new research center, I have informed Dean Thomas Pallesen that I will not apply for an extension of my current contract as head of department when this expires on 1 March 2024. Instead, I plan to become the center leader of CoRE. In the coming month, the dean will initiate the process of finding a new head of department.

It has been a pleasure to serve as the head of this department since September 2017. Some decisions have been extremely difficult, but overall it has been a pleasure to serve in this position, and I will truly miss the job and the tasks. In particular, I will miss the people surrounding and supporting me in the daily work, including the collaboration that we have had in the management team. I appreciate the support I have felt throughout from all you. Gladly, new tasks are waiting, and I look so much forward to working with you on these new exciting challenges.

Niels Haldrup