Newsletter 51 from the Head of Department

INTERNAL NEWS

Political agreement in place: Special grant of DKK 62.5 million in 2023-2030 and increased uptake of 15 dental students per year in 2023-2026
In March, the government and a number of agreement parties decided to earmark 125 million DKK to increase the uptake of dental students in both Aarhus and Copenhagen rather than creating a third dental education. Since then, together with the University of Copenhagen, we have negotiated with the Ministry of Education and Research about student enrollment and the distribution of funds, and the minister has just approved our proposal:

• We will increase admissions by 15 dental students from 2023, so that up to and including 2026 we will admit a total of 100 students per year. From 2027, we will return to the current level and again admit 85 dental students per year.
• We get DKK 62.5 million DKK over the next eight years to realize the increased intake and stabilize the scientific and clinical teaching staff.

The University of Copenhagen receives the same amount and overall increases enrollment with the same total number of dental students over the years as we do.

It is really good news and gratifying that a long, tough move has now borne fruit - both for us as an institute and for dental education in Denmark.

Even though a third dental education was taken off the table, the government still has a vision of increased regionalization of education in Denmark and thus also of sub-elements of the current dental education. Therefore, DKK 40 million has also been set aside. The funding is for investigating and developing how parts of the teaching – possibly in conjunction with the dental hygienist educations – can take place outside the big cities.

We participate in the work together with the Danish Agency for Education and Research, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Danish Health Authority, University of Copenhagen, Aalborg University, the University of Southern Denmark and all the trade unions. A number of meetings have been arranged, and we must have a regionalization proposal ready for the minister by October next year.

New, established tradition: IOOS Joint Day
Finally, thanks to the many of you who had the opportunity to join our IOOS Joint Day on Thursday 29 June. I think it was a fantastic day, and fortunately many of you have also made positive comments about both the day, the gathering and the presentations about today's and future generations at work and in society from Marianne Levinsen. Therefore, we have decided that the joint day will in future become a tradition at the institute.

Now we really need to save on electricity
The skyrocketing electricity prices can now also be felt at Aarhus University, which stands to receive an extra electricity bill of DKK 70-80 million DKK this year. The costs are particularly large in Health, NAT and TECH, as we have laboratories, clinics, freezers, animal stables, supercomputers etc., which use a lot of power. Although we at Health have already reduced power consumption considerably, each faculty has been given the task of finding out where and how we can reduce power consumption further. This is being calculated and worked on at Bygningsservice together with the faculty management - very fast, because it is urgent to take measures that can minimize expenses and curb the serious financial situation.

We will announce as soon as we know exactly what this will mean for our work routines and equipment at the institute.

In the meantime, I would strongly encourage all of us to think about our own behaviour – turn off the lights and switch off equipment that is not in use, avoid standby mode, etc. – based on the 'many streams small' principle (38,000 students and 8300 staff), so that we as a university can find the necessary savings.

Senior bonus or senior days?
A small service message from our HR: Employees who have reached the age of 62 have the option of converting the contractually negotiated senior bonus (0.8% of the usual annual salary) into two senior days off per year. Should it be relevant with the senior days, you must notify HR by email odont.health.hr@au.dk, no later than 1 October of the year before the bonus would otherwise be paid. See more on the employee website or in the Circular on Senior bonus [in Danish].

IOOS has been listed
The Palaces and Culture Agency has nominated parts of Aarhus University for conservation because it is "an architectural and landscape architectural masterpiece and a unique example of a so-called park university in Denmark", as the press release states. The protection applies to, among other things, the Book tower, dormitory 4, stakladekomplekset, the Natural History Museum - and the 'Dental School'. What an honour - now we have to see what significance it has for what we can and cannot do indoors. The listing of Aarhus University is under consultation until 11 December 2022. See more on the website.

RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND TEACHING

Get the most out of the teaching evaluations
The Center for Educational Development (CED) at Aarhus University offers workshops on course evaluations, where you as a teacher get the opportunity to work with feedback and use it to develop concrete ideas and initiatives. You can register with Associate Professor Berit Lassesen by email: belas@au.dk - read more in 'Workshop: Use your course evaluation as a development tool'.

Help test the classroom of the future
The Center for Educational Development (CED) has converted eight teaching rooms at Health into so-called HyFlex rooms – three of them are with us (building 1613, rooms 49, 109 and 135). The rooms are built for hybrid teaching, where cameras, microphones and trained e-moderators ensure that both students in the room and online get the best possible teaching experience. CED is now looking for teachers who will work with the hybrid teaching in the premises. If this is something for you, you can register as a test pilot with special consultant Mads Ronald Dahl by email: wiz@au.dk. Also read more in the article 'Become a test pilot in the classrooms of the future'.

Medical Innovation Day 2022: Invitation to enterprising and curious souls
The faculty is again inviting this year to the Medical Innovation Day event, where researchers, foundations and investors present research ideas that have the potential to also become a good business, and where they discuss the possibilities of conducting medical and technological innovation as a health researcher.

The event is a must for those of you who want to know more about health innovation and in particular about this year's theme 'What are the implications of post-marketing studies on innovation and future clinical trials?'

Thursday 27 October 2022 at Aarhus University Hospital. Registration via Conference Manager no later than 3 October.

Pictures from this year's graduation
On Friday 1 July, we said congratulations and goodbye to all our graduates at this year's graduation ceremony in the university's beautiful Aula. It's great that the institute is buzzing with life and students again, and it's great that we're repeating the entire graduation ceremony next summer. There are pictures and an atmosphere report on the website.

NEWS ABOUT NAMES

• New postdoc via grant from the Innovation Fund: Associate Professor Sebastian Schlafer, Section for Oral Ecology and Caries Control, and Associate Professor Rikke Meyer from iNANO have applied for and received 1.7 million DKK from the Innovation Fund. The majority of the money goes to a postdoctoral position, which is occupied by Dominique Evans, who will continue the extensive enzyme work, which, among other things, Sebastian is in the process of. The project here has a particular focus on DNases.
• Rubens Spin-Neto defends his doctoral dissertation on 16 September: You are invited to the defence under the title "Patient movement and motion artefacts in CBCT of the dentomaxillofacial region". It takes place in auditorium 424, building 1231 (Biomedicine) at 14.00 or online via Zoom: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/66526231999. If you attend physically at the reception, remember to register no later than 9 September: https://www.tilmeld.dk/rubensspin-neto/signup.
• Line Staun Larsen's research makes headlines in the media: In 2020, assistant professor Line Staun Larsen published an overview article on fluoride and fluorinated substances in Tandlægebladet [in Danish]. This has led to the post 'Hoaxes and facts about fluoride in toothpaste' [in Danish] on the Danish Dental Association's website and also a longer article on the same subject in Magasinet Sundhed. Videnskab.dk has also sent for Line's expert knowledge, but in a different aspect: they wanted to know whether carbon dioxide in different types of sparkling water damages the teeth [in Danish]. It is good and important that we bring our knowledge into play in society and also in places where other than colleagues make use of it.
• Our pain research has a big impact in the world: The journal PAIN has compiled their 'impact metric report' from 2021, and here the statistics show that out of their five most cited articles, Professor Peter Svensson is the co-author of three of them. Peter's H-index, which measures researchers' publications and influence, is 70, which is simply impressive and testifies research making a difference in knowledge about pain conditions for the benefit of patients.

Best wishes

Siri