HoD News - 26 May

Dear all,

The spring semester teaching draws to an end, and we are entering the exam period. I want to thank both teaching and administrative staff for your efforts during the semester, and I hope you will get on well with your work and exams in the weeks to come.

External funding

As you will see from this week’s ECON Newsletter, it has just been announced that colleagues in our department have had great success with their applications for the DFF spring distribution of grants.

I would like to congratulate all grant receivers. You have done an excellent job and you have shown that working hard with applications can pay off. I would also like to add that our experience is that being persistent in improving applications despite initial rejection of funding and subsequently reapplying can in many cases lead to success.  

We all know that attracting external funding is absolutely crucial for the finances of the department, and of course for the grant holder. Receiving external grants provides freedom and opportunities to pursue research ideas, to build research leadership skills, and to fund activities and networks that contribute to the research environment at our department.

Department website relaunch in the autumn 2023

Over the last couple of months, and in close collaboration with Aarhus BSS Communication, a working group set up by the department management has been working on the redesign and reconstruction of our department website, www.econ.au.dk.

The content and layout of our current website have needed an overhaul for some time, and the new website has been developed with the aim of delivering a user-friendly experience for our external stakeholders, collaboration partners and prospective students. 

The section heads have already initiated the process of reviewing the content related to the sections specifically, e.g., the definition of research areas, and section members will be involved in this work.

Along with the new website design comes a content strategy that addresses some of the main quality assurance policies that have been missing from the current website. This also includes a few guidelines for new content to be published on the website, and a stricter focus on the actual number of pages and for how long they can be kept online. 

Over the next couple of weeks and months, a process of relocating or changing some of the content on the current website will take place, so that it adheres to the content strategy going forward. In this connection, a number of faculty and staff will be contacted.

We expect to be ready to launch the new website in the autumn, and we look forward to presenting the new website to everyone and of course to our external users. 

If you have any questions, please contact your section head or Anne la Cour.

I wish you all a good Whitsun weekend.

Niels