Newsletter 77 from the Head of Department

INTERNALLY AT THE DEPARTMENT

Nordic Dental Summit in Iceland with Research and Research Facilities as Theme
In mid-April, I and Deputy Head for Research Lene Baad-Hansen participated in the Nordic Dean Meeting 2026 in Iceland; the professional gathering for Heads of Departments from all the Nordic university dental education institutions. The theme was research and research equipment that we can share with each other across the countries. We talked about our research evaluation, research strategy and themes, and presented an overview of our research facilities.

Once again this year, the three days together have made our relationship closer and cooperation easier and also underlined the value of our high educational quality and the strength of the Nordic model of dental healthcare.

5% of us were fooled by a fake phishing email
In week 13, Aarhus University IT sent us (373 employees at IOOS) an email disguised as a phishing email. The email contained a link asking us to enter our username and password.

• 19 employees clicked on the link in the email.
• A few subsequently entered their username and password.
• 25 employees reported the phishing email as recommended via the button in Outlook.

The good news is that we did somewhat better this year than the last time we received a test phishing email from Aarhus University IT.

No harm was done this time, but it is important that we are critical of emails where we do not know the sender, or where we are asked to enter sensitive information. And that we never share our password.

When we receive phishing emails – and Aarhus University receives thousands of them every day – they must be deleted and reported before then via a button in Outlook. See the university's website for information on how to report phishing emails.

Aarhus University's engineered phishing campaign has been launched to raise our awareness so that we can identify and report emails that are sent with the aim of gaining access to our systems.

Dean's Office visit: 2030 strategy, data security and PhD research at IOOS
The Dean's Office at the Faculty of Health – that is, our Dean Anne-Mette Hvas, Vice-Deans Lise Wogensen Bach and Per Höllsberg and Head of Administration Lasse Munk Madsen – visited the department in March. Here they presented Aarhus University's 2030 strategy and explained how we at Health will work with the strategy towards 2030. What we will be working on at faculty and department level includes:

• lifelong learning
• support for researchers early in their careers
• research infrastructure, e.g. core facilities
• international university collaboration in Rwanda
• the research areas of women's health and food and nutrition.

Cyber ​​and data security will also continue to play a major role – e.g. because there has been an extension of an EU directive, the so-called NIS2 (Network and Information Systems Directive 2), which places strict demands on us as educational institutions and healthcare professionals who handle personal data and sensitive information. In short, we must have high security and a clear preparedness to handle and report, for example, hacker attacks and crashes. Data security will therefore also be a significant topic at IOOS in the coming years.

We repeated the meeting format from previous Dean's Office visits, and therefore we used the second half of the meeting to have four of our PhD students present their research in an ultra-short format. Many thanks to Fatemeh Sohrabniya, Katrine Riis Dahl Johannsen, Julie Pajaniaye and Muhammed Alparslan Gøkhan, who demonstrated the breadth and depth of our research in the best possible way.

Also thanks to the many of you who had the opportunity to participate and contribute with good questions and insightful comments to the Dean's Office.

Exercise, community and fresh air in August
On Thursday, August 20, there will be a DHL relay in Mindeparken in Aarhus. As always, there is the option of a 5 km relay race or a 5 km walk.

Klaus Balle Jørgensen from the Secretariat has very kindly offered to coordinate and register both the walking and running teams from IOOS, so that we can also sit and eat together in the tents – and you don't need to already have a team to register. May 6th is the very last registration deadline, so hurry up and write to Klaus and remember to write whether you want to walk or run.

RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND TEACHING

Quota 2 applications: Continued high demand for our programmes
On 15 March at 12:00, the deadline for quota 2 applications for all higher education programmes, including ours, expired. Just like in previous years, there is still great interest in the dental programmes. The quota 2 application numbers this year look like this:

• Clinical dental technology: 139 applicants, of which 43 are first priority
• Dental hygiene: 455 applicants, of which 206 are first priority
• Dentistry: 832 applicants, of which 409 are first priority – dentistry is actually the sixth most sought-after programme at Aarhus University via quota 2.

The deadline for quota 1 applications is at the end of July, and only then will we have the total number of applicants for our dental programmes.

NEWS ABOUT NAMES

Research award for Fernando Bitencourt
Postdoc Fernando Valentim Bitencourt, Section for Oral Ecology has received the International Association for Dental Research BEHSR Outstanding Postgraduate Student Award.

The award, which is presented within the dental subdiscipline; Behavioral, Epidemiologic and Health Services Research (BEHSR), was given to Fernando for his research into social inequality in the connection between diabetes and edentulism.

Fernando was presented with the award at the International Association for Dental Research conference on March 26th in San Diego, USA. Big congratulations!

Line Staun Larsen was “full of knowledge in the researchers’ Friday bar”
At the end of February, Associate Professor Line Staun Larsen participated in a podcast episode about forensic dentistry in the professional, popular science dissemination series called “Full of knowledge – the researchers’ Friday bar”.

Here, Line explained how dentistry contributes to police investigation work and helps with the identification of victims after natural disasters and major accidents. Exciting field and well presented. Listen to the episode – among others here: The true crime of natural science: What do the teeth tell us? [In Danish].  

Best wishes,

Siri