LIFE's strategic action plan for 2011-2014
LIFE’s strategic action plan for 2011-2014 comprises important initiatives for maintaining and strengthening the faculty’s clear profile within research, education, business sector collaboration and research-based public sector services.
Maintaining LIFE as an attractive workplace is also a key focus area, centrering on clear management and employee involvement. The action plan takes its point of departure in selected elite research areas at LIFE, which are to function as the driving force for the faculty’s ambitious strategic goals – both nationally and internationally.
Read more under the following headings below:
- Research
- Education
- Society
- Workplace
- Campus
Introduction
The Faculty of Life Sciences integrates the scientific disciplines from basic research with applied research, i.e. within the areas food, veterinary medicine and natural resources. The faculty strengthens the University of Copenhagen in a number of areas and contributes to cross-faculty collaboration and to the interaction between the university and society – both nationally and internationally.
The faculty’s mission is to maintain and strengthen the University of Copenhagen’s position as one of Europe’s three leading university environments within the areas food, veterinary medicine and natural resources.
Our overall strategic objectives are as follows:
- LIFE will contribute significantly to profiling the University of Copenhagen nationally and internationally
- LIFE will conduct bioscience research in the entire chain from basic research to production, product, consumers and society
- LIFE will educate more graduates who fulfil society’s needs – in terms of both general and specialist expertise
- LIFE will maintain its focus on interdisciplinary academic action areas
- LIFE will expand its position as a leading partner in relation to the business sector and public authorities
- LIFE will be an attractive and flexible workplace
The strategic action plan for the 2011-2014 period will contribute to the faculty maintaining and strengthening its position as one of Europe’s leading university environments within the areas food, veterinary medicine and natural resources. The strategy, which will involve LIFE’s employees, students and partners, must be underpinned by the faculty’s continued work towards a sustainable future for the society of which we are part.
Process and strategic challenges
On merging with the University of Copenhagen on 1 January 2007, the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University became the Faculty of Life Sciences, which was later abbreviated to LIFE.
In 2009, after the merger with the University of Copenhagen, the time had come to take a look at LIFE’s situation and strategic challenges. At the rector’s request, two major fact-finding missions were completed in 2009, which are described in the reports:
- Status and strategic perspectives for the Faculty of Life Sciences following the merger with the University of Copenhagen (Status og strategiske perspektiver for Det Biovidenskabelige Fakultet efter fusionen med Københavns Universitet)
- Synergies within natural sciences at the University of Copenhagen
On the basis of these two reports as well as a long-term internal strategy process, in 2010 we prepared an action plan for the 2011-2014 period. The action plan represents the faculty’s proposals for common milestones for the future. It addresses a number of strategic challenges for LIFE in respect of strengthening the faculty’s competitive position within research and education as well as expanding its market position within business collaboration and research-based public sector services.
The ambition is to give the faculty a coherent, communicable and attractive profile. The action plan takes its point of departure in selected elite research areas at LIFE, which are to function as the driving force for the faculty’s ambitious strategic goals – both nationally and internationally.
The strategic action plan for 2011-2014 focuses on five general themes: research, education, society, workplace and campus. The main points are summarised here.
Research
Based on a process in which more than 30 proposals for academic fields of excellence were reviewed, LIFE has identified eight elite research areas and six emerging elite research areas within and across the faculty’s three main academic areas: food, veterinary medicine and natural resources. Over the next four years, the faculty will strategically support the efforts to realise the visions and specific targets set out in the individual development plans of the elite research environments. At the same time, the ground must be prepared for the emergence and establishment of new elite research environments.
Our research-based activities must be supported by the strategic recruitment of researchers who, through state-of-the-art research, can contribute to increasing publication rates in recognised international journals. The faculty will also underpin and stimulate the academic environments’ external collaborations and procurement of external financing which can support the research activities. We will ensure diversity and freedom of research while at the same ensuring that the faculty’s main research activities remain sector and business-oriented and result in innovation in the business sector and society.
LIFE’s elite research environments in 2011-2014 are:
- Plant biotechnology
- Animal health and animal models
- Bioimaging
- Chemometry, biostatistics and multivariate data analysis
- Food quality, food safety and zoonoses
- Obesity and appetite regulation
- Plant biosystems
- Water resources in biological production
LIFE’s emerging elite research environments in 2011-2014 are:
- Metabolomics and bioactive substances
- Early nutrition and growth
- Nanobioscience and biophysics
- International economics and development studies
- Environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology
- Environmental and natural resources – economics and administration
Interdisciplinary action areas and networks
With its strategic action plan, LIFE wants to maintain its focus on academic action areas across scientific disciplines and institutions. In the 2011-2014 period, we will have special focus on the following projects:
Collaboration with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Health Sciences
The collaboration with the deans within the health and life science cluster, the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (KU-FARMA), the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE), the Faculty of Health Sciences (KU-SUND) and the Faculty of Science (KU-NAT), was established in connection with and as follow-up to the merger. The objective of the merger was to achieve academic benefits through increased collaboration and coordination. The identification of interfaces between the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, LIFE and the Faculty of Science (the PhLS report) indicates a range of potential synergies which the faculties are still working to realise.
LIFE’s four interdisciplinary focus areas
Since 2005, LIFE has continuously selected and supported interdisciplinary action areas internally at the faculty. Currently, the faculty is supporting four action areas:
PhD education
The Danish government’s globalisation agreement focused extensively on increasing the number of PhD students in Denmark, which has imposed a number of specific challenges on the universities. Resources must be procured and qualified PhD students recruited. A sufficient offering of high-quality generic and specialist PhD courses must be ensured while at the same time guaranteeing sufficient capacity and quality in the academic supervision and the working environment.
In the 2011-2014 period, a strategy must be drawn up for the PhD education at LIFE which balances the academic content and volume of the PhD programmes with relevant purposes and requirements. Five development projects have been identified, with the head of the graduate school being responsible for the activities.
The projects comprise:
- Internationalisation strategy
- Career planning and the possibility of postdoc positions and subsequent employment
- Coordinated and transparent cross-faculty offering of PhD courses
- Focus on PhD courses with experimental content
- Communication activities and ensuring a recruitment base and ambassador role for PhD students
Research infrastructure
In the coming years, LIFE is planning massive investments in technology platforms and core facilities with a view to supporting the development of the faculty’s existing and future elite research environments and academic fields of excellence. These investments are fundamental to realising the faculty’s academic ambitions, including being an attractive partner in both the national and the international arena.
Education
LIFE offers interdisciplinary programmes, which are developed in close collaboration between the faculty’s departments. Our programmes are continuously adapted to the needs of society through close interaction and dialogue with the faculty’s employers in the business sector. The programmes are based on state-of-the-art research and are taught by committed researchers and lecturers. The quality of the programmes and the teaching is assured on an ongoing basis, and there is close contact between students and lecturers. In addition, the study environment is characterised by a high proportion of students from all over the world.
LIFE has identified six interdisciplinary development projects for the 2011-2014 period:
Interdisciplinary programmes/LIFE’s programme structure
We will further develop our programme structure through collaboration across the faculty and all of the University of Copenhagen. The aim is to maintain and strengthen our position as an exciting study environment and an attractive partner for other educational institutions, nationally as well as internationally.
Contact with society in general/the employers
Our contact with the employers is a position of strength which we will maintain and develop further in our programmes to ensure that the faculty’s graduates are ready for the labour market. In their working lives, graduates must also have the chance to upgrade and expand their original competencies with relevant continuing and further education courses offered by LIFE.
International programmes
We will strengthen the international study environment with an offering of English language courses and international study programmes, high student and employee mobility and through a number of binding collaborations with leading European and non-European universities.
Good study environment
We will maintain and develop our unique study environment with its green areas, central location in Copenhagen, good association activities, good study facilities, trust and openness between students and lecturers as well as the fruitful dialogue between students, lecturers, management and the faculty’s administration.
Quality assurance
An overall quality assurance policy must be drawn up for our programmes. The policy should, among other things, comprise evaluation procedures, language certification and educational/didactic supplementary training.
Educational theory and practice, including e-learning
We will place increasing focus on lecturers’ teaching qualifications – both in connection with new appointments and in terms of the continuing education of existing staff. An e-learning strategy has been prepared for the faculty, and we want to collaborate with other Danish and foreign universities on realising this strategy.
In addition, LIFE has identified concrete development projects within the following specific fields of study:
- Veterinary medicine and domestic animals
- Food and nutrition
- Environment and plants
- Forest, landscape and cities
- Biology-biotechnology within domestic animals, plants and food
- International economics and food policy
- Developing countries – forestry, farming and food
Society
Business sector collaboration
LIFE will continue to be known among private and public, Danish and international companies and organisations as a strongly business-oriented faculty within both research and education. This means that our programmes, students and graduates as well as our research, innovation and researchers play a natural role in company-relevant contexts where LIFE appears as a strategic and value-creating partner.
In the future action plan period, LIFE will focus on clearer business orientation in both its research and study programmes. Here, special focus is on increased research collaboration and communication of research findings as well as on programmes tailored to employer requirements and characterised by close contact with companies during the studies. A part of these efforts consists of renewed and systematic maintenance and cultivation of relations at relevant levels with the agricultural, veterinary, environmental, energy, food and biotech sectors.
In spring 2010, the University of Copenhagen prepared a number of recommendations for increasing the university’s collaboration with the business sector. The recommendations will be developed in the coming years, and LIFE will contribute to and participate in the University of Copenhagen’s increased focus on collaborating with the business sector.
LIFE also sees considerable potential in increasing its research collaboration with international companies within the faculty’s elite research environments, both in respect of implementing research findings and funding new research. This collaboration comprises, among other things, special efforts to introduce more industrial professorships and increase the number of industrial PhDs.
In the field of education, LIFE will work on strengthening its collaboration with the business sector through a close dialogue with employers on tailoring the faculty’s programmes to the requirements of the business sector. Specific teaching initiatives aim to increase business contacts in our programmes, e.g. through business projects and company-relevant theses.
LIFE has identified the following four elite research environments with special strengths or potential in terms of collaboration with the business sector:
- Obesity and appetite regulation
- Chemometry, biostatistics and multivariate data analysis
- Plant biotechnology
- Animal health and animal models
International collaboration – strategic alliances
LIFE enjoys a strong position within veterinary medicine, food science and natural resources in Europe, and we have an attractive and internationally oriented research and teaching environment. The faculty’s objective for the 2011-2014 period is to be the leader within clearly defined focus areas, and the international profile must thus be strengthened by establishing strategic alliances and by participating in well-functioning and important international university networks.
Collaboration with developing countries
LIFE involves itself actively in a number of global challenges in fields relating to developing countries. These challenges comprise the management of natural resources, climate changes, the production of nutritionally correct food for a growing world population, global health and the establishment of knowledge societies in the world’s poor countries as well. The faculty has a number of internationally recognised research environments which are working on these global challenges. In addition, we have an international study environment with many foreign students – also from the poor countries of the world.
In the 2011-2014 period, LIFE will have special focus on:
- Research in relation to the fields relating to developing countries
- Education in relation to the fields relating to developing countries
- Capacity building
- Lobby activities and communication
Research-based public sector services and knowledge dissemination
Within several subject areas, LIFE handles important societal tasks in the form of sector-related research and research-based consultancy in respect of relevant public authorities. LIFE’s objective for the 2011-2014 period is to further develop its contacts and strong relations within the existing research-based public sector services which the faculty offers the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. Furthermore, the faculty will make its positions of strength known to other national authorities such as the Danish Ministry of the Interior and Health, the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs Denmark and the municipalities as well as international organisations such as the European Commission, the World Bank, the UN, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) etc.
We will also apply for funding subject to competition from ministries and international organisations, either alone or in collaboration with other faculties and universities. The handling of these tasks contributes to the faculty’s other main tasks through synergies with research, education and communication.
One of the main tasks of the university is to spread knowledge to society in a broad sense. Another consideration concerns the increasing competition for the best researchers and students, nationally as well as internationally.
LIFE will therefore make targeted efforts to communicate its academic standards and strengths – both directly to relevant target groups and more widely to decision-makers, grant holders and the general public.
Workplace
LIFE is and must continue to be developed into an attractive and flexible workplace. We have strong traditions of employee development and involvement, dialogue-based management and a positive interaction with the students. While focusing on the University of Copenhagen’s personnel policy, the faculty management will work to maintain the dialogue-based management style and collaboration culture practised at LIFE.
Special focus will be on maintaining commitment to and influence on study boards, PhD committees, education committees, cooperation committees and the Academic Council as well as on continuing the good collaboration with our Advisory Board and panels of employer representatives. Important elements in this organisational culture are respect and maintaining the forms of collaboration and networks that underpin a clear, legitimate management – including LIFE’s research group structure and the close dialogue between the faculty management and heads of department as well as a targeted development of the faculty’s academic talents.
LIFE’s research group structure plays an important role in the development and progress of the faculty – and thus also in the implementation of the strategic action plan for 2011-2014. Moreover, the faculty is organised into relatively large departments with more than 100 employees and generally with solid administrative support. Both academic staff and technical and administrative staff must be offered competency development with a view to continuously being able to adapt to the future needs of the faculty.
The strategic action plan for 2011-2014 sets out seven subprojects which must support the objective of maintaining and developing LIFE as an attractive and flexible workplace as well as increasing the cross-organisational collaboration:
- Dialogue-based management culture at LIFE, as well as employee involvement
- Optimising recruitment processes
- International recruitment
- Talent development
- Competency development
- Women in management
- Optimising financial processes
Campus
At Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, LIFE has a unique campus environment and a huge potential in Taastrup and Nødebo. The ambition going forward is to continue to create an optimum framework for student life and the working environment at the faculty. This is to be ensured through the development of buildings and outdoor areas that support the faculty’s teaching and research at all times. Working environment and energy optimisation must be incorporated in the daily operations and in all the faculty’s building, maintenance and development projects.
In the 2011-2014 period, the faculty will carry out massive building activities, starting with the completion of the Small Animal Hospital, the construction of a new greenhouse laboratory in Taastrup, the construction of a new food block facing Rolighedsvej as well as the construction of the Copenhagen Plant Science Center on Bülowsvej.
LIFE has identified five development projects with which we will achieve optimum quality within the given financial framework:
- Campus development at Frederiksberg and in Taastrup
- Laboratory renovations
- Energy and resource optimisation
- Physical working environment for employees and students
- Accommodation coordination and service for foreign students and researchers
Kirsten Jenlev, - last update:23 February 2011