HoD News - 3 April 2018

Dear colleagues,

Aarhus University has introduced seven norms for the recruitment of permanent members of academic staff.

The seven norms were laid down by the senior management team after discussion in the academic councils and several consultations with the research and teaching programmes as well as departments and departmental forums.

The purpose of the norms is to contribute to strengthening recruitment practices at Aarhus University, for example by helping to ensure the quality and diversity of the fields of applicants to positions at all four faculties. The norms provide a shared framework for recruitment and address the use of search committees, re-advertisement of positions, assessment committees, research abroad and appointment committees. The norms will be implemented at the university departments/schools and centres, whose management will be responsible for integrating the norms with existing local guidelines.

As regards the Department of Economics and Business Economics, the norms will have little practical impact since the norms are already standard practice for recruitments: Openings are formulated broadly and are advertised nationally as well as internationally, and for that reason all permanent position openings generally have a huge number of applicants. Filling of positions is not possible without a prior opening. Assessment committees have a majority of external members, and department members are involved in the appointment process. It is also important to stress that change of research environment via long-term visits at other (international) research institutions weights positively in assessments. To achieve this goal, the department strives for making it possible to support long-term visits abroad financially via department and (preferably) external funds to improve career tracks.

The seven recruitment norms at Aarhus University are the following:    

1. All advertisements for permanent academic positions must be formulated in broad terms and published both nationally and internationally.

2. Search committees are a requirement in order to ensure a sufficiently large, diverse pool of high-quality applicants (external applicants, international applicants and applicants of both sexes).

3. A position must be re-advertised if an insufficient number of qualified applications has been received by the application deadline.

4. The majority of the members of the assessment committee must be external.

5. Appointment committees are a requirement; in case of professorships, with the participation of the dean’s office/executive team. 

6. In connection with the assessment of applicant qualifications, great emphasis must be placed on long-term stays at one or more internationally recognised research institutions outside of Denmark.

7. Appointing internal candidates to permanent positions without prior advertisement is not possible.

 

Niels Haldrup