The Danish government has rushed through an agreement aimed at offering more courses and study programmes outside the four major cities in Denmark. As president of DTU, I will do everything in my power to realize this ambition without compromising the quality of our study programmes and the well-being of our staff and students.
A month was all it took for the government to ensure backing for its proposal to create more opportunities for education outside the big cities. This is a laudable goal that DTU is very happy to contribute to realizing; however, we are slightly surprised that the universities were not consulted on possible ways of doing so. We have a number of ideas for how this could be done without negatively impacting the quality of education and without losing valuable research environments.
Society needs engineers, and we will do all we can to deliver them. At the moment, we are therefore working intensively to engage with the Danish municipalities and with local companies to discuss the possibilities for creating new study environments where it makes sense, for example in connection with large Danish infrastructure projects.
First of all, we are thinking of the idea—put forward by DTU some years ago—of building student housing in various parts of the country and then inviting students to stay there while working on projects for companies in the local area, perhaps creating lasting contacts there. The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link project or the newly opened GreenLab Skive are two examples of relevant projects. At the same time, we are also working hard to offer more places at existing DTU locations in the provinces, for example at the Danish Shellfish Centre near Nykøbing Mors in western Jutland.
The big problem with the agreement now adopted by the Danish parliament is the implicit assumption that it will be possible to build new study environments from scratch outside the big cities simply by closing down programmes at the parent universities.
This makes no sense, and especially not for a technical university like DTU. The cost of running our Lyngby and Ballerup campuses will still be the same, which means that huge additional investments will be needed to create similar teaching and laboratory facilities elsewhere, unless we accept a lowering of standards. And this we are not prepared to do under any circumstances.
Quite apart from that, there is no guarantee, of course, that one or two regionalized study programmes will end up being established close to where potential applicants live.
Under the agreement, the institutions are required—in the course of 2021—to present suggestions for the regionalization of study programmes and the concurrent scaling-down of admissions in the large cities by 5-10 per cent. So we are looking at some busy autumn months. Unfortunately, I cannot rule out changes and the relocation of study programmes here at DTU in the long term. But I will do everything I can to safeguard the quality of DTU's study programmes and the well-being of both our students and staff.
For the moment, we hopefully have a sunny and relaxing summer ahead of us. After the extended lockdown and only sporadic encounters on campus, I am very much looking forward to being able to meet face to face again—and to getting on with our work and studies.
A happy summer to you all!
