Newsletter 75 from the Head of Department

INTERNALLY AT THE DEPARTMENT

New study environment on the way in building 1611
At the beginning of March, work will begin to renovate and modernise the premises and hallways in the basement (level 0) of building 1611 – this is where, among other things, the Anatomical Study Collection is located. We are creating a modern, bright and more inviting study environment that provides space for teaching, group work and immersion.

The renovation is comprehensive and will certainly cause noise, dust and construction clutter, and therefore Health Research Support will temporarily move to building 1610, rooms 396 and 398. The Anatomical Study Collection will also not be available during the renovation period.

The plan for the renovation has been prepared by a group of students and employees, and the new study environment is expected to be completed before the summer holidays. You can see floor plans and very nice visualisations of the new study environment on the employee pages ("renovation of the Anatomical Study Collection").

We now have guidelines for competence development
We now have a set of guidelines that help us define competence development and describe what we need to do if we want to acquire new competences or develop our qualifications in relation to the work task solution.

As a starting point, competence development should be discussed with the immediate manager based on the department's strategy and goals and with the needs of the unit and the employee in mind.

Look through the guidelines if you have thoughts about competence development - they are on our website.

Thank you for the effort to the working group (Andreas Schlott, Linda Fischer and Sandie Ørum Justsen), who have prepared the guidelines with inspiration from, among others, Region Midt and from the former SKT (School for Clinical Assistant, Dental Hygiene and Clinical Dental Technician Educations).

Our local liaison committee (LSU) has discussed and approved the guidelines, which we will evaluate in the spring of 2027, when we have gone through the staff development dialogues (SDD) 2026/27.

The staff association "Munterhed" has room for more members
Our brand new staff association, which has been named "Munterhed", is well on its way to 100 members, but there is room for many more. The first event "Bingo & Bubbles" was reportedly a tremendous success, and if you join the staff association, you can look forward to the next event on March 18, which is a visit to the Department of Forensic Medicine.

Report IT problems through support.au.dk
Most of us call or write an email to the IT department when we run into IT problems that we cannot solve ourselves. We should avoid that and instead use the website support.au.dk. This way, the cases can be distributed to the right people and prioritized more quickly, and this makes task solving faster and more efficient for the IT employees - and for us.

On Monday, January 26, AU switched its IT support system to TOPdesk. This shouldn't mean anything in practice for us, other than that the usability will be improved.

The Dean's Office at Health will visit the department on Monday, March 9, and you are invited
Our Dean Anne-Mette Hvas and Vice-Deans Lise Wogensen Bach and Per Höllsberg will visit the department on Monday, March 9, from 3-4:30 p.m. They will talk about what is happening at the Faculty of Health and answer questions from you. Just like last year, we will use the opportunity to present some of our research projects from the Department's junior researchers.

RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND TEACHING

Vibe Lindhardt Ishiwata is the lecturer of the year in the clinical dental technician programme
Huge congratulations to Vibe Lindhardt Ishiwata, who has been named lecturer of the year 2025 in the clinical dental technician programme. I regret that I did not mention Vibe in my last newsletter. Congratulations once again on the great award, even for the second year in a row.

Research security: New guidelines for project collaborations and travel to high-risk countries
The so-called URIS guidelines (the Ministry of Higher Education and Science's guidelines for international research and innovation collaboration) – the guidelines that are intended to increase the security of international research collaborations and ensure that our knowledge does not fall into wrong hands – have been expanded:

Travel to high-risk countries must be approved by the Head of Department, and you must bring a special travel smartphone and travel computer with limited access to Aarhus University's data and systems.

Project collaborations must be risk assessed if external funding is applied for or written collaboration agreements are entered into.

There are new checklists for offboarding employees.

High-risk countries currently include China, Russia and Iran. Read more about the guidelines on the university's employee pages if you have research collaborations (in progress) with any of these countries.

NEWS ABOUT NAMES

Forensic odontology in The Danish Dental Journal
At the beginning of January, the Danish Dental Journal had an exciting theme issue on forensic odontology, to which Associate Professor Line Staun Larsen contributed. Here, among other things, you could read about the 2,400-year-old teeth of the Tollund Man, which have only become visible with the help of micro-CT scanning – read the theme issue here [In Danish].

The “professional relay” stopped by IOOS
“What motivates you in working with children and young people?”, senior clinical lecturer and Study Associate Professor Marie-Louise Milvang Nørregaard was asked in Tandlægebladet’s “professional relay”. You can see the answer in the January issue of the Danish Dental Journal [In Danish] (p. 63).

Have a nice weekend or winter break,

Siri