Faculty strategy

A number of initiatives at UCPH level contribute to strengthening SOCIAL SCIENCE’s talent development and recruitment, including specifying the promotion requirements and content descriptions for various job categories and career paths. SOCIAL SCIENCE will have a particular focus on career development at all levels, including:

• Implementing the tenure-track model for assistant professors, as well as a new model for promotion from associate professor to professor
• Professionalising application processes and strengthening the international network with a view to recruitment
• Setting specific placement targets for BA, MA and PhD graduates in the private sector, employer networks, mentoring schemes, internships, etc.

A new research assessment will be carried out in 2021/2022. SOCIAL SCIENCE will also participate in the UCPH-wide PhD evaluation in 2019/20.

By setting up the interdisciplinary research centre SODAS, SOCIAL SCIENCE has established a leading research environment in social data science. All of the departments have also, to varying degrees, established research groups that span both data science and their own specific area of expertise. During the strategy period, a number of initiatives will enhance research and research collaboration, both in the departments and in SODAS, including:

• Consolidating SODAS as an independent, sustainable and development-oriented organisation
• Landing a number of major grants for research and education in the digital field
• Providing continuing and professional education in social data science methods for academic staff.

In recent years, SOCIAL SCIENCE has significantly increased the number of external research grants. The ambition for the next few years is to strengthen the frameworks and foundations for attracting external funding, e.g. by:

• Regularly updating departmental strategies for external funding, involving the specific prioritisation of initiatives, in order to meet more of the actual costs of research and its infrastructure and to provide better administrative support for researchers
• Pursuing major research grants that support projects with a tangible impact on society
• Seeking more funding from the EUs upcoming framework programme Horizon Europe to facilitate the recruitment of researchers from leading (non-Danish) research institutions. The EU’s “excellence” (ERC Grants and Marie Curie fellowships) and “societal challenges” pillars are both relevant in this context.

As a starting point for the realisation of the digital transformation in SOCIAL SCIENCE during the strategy period, we will formulate a digitisation action plan. In regard to teaching, this will ensure:

• The development of digital teaching methods and digital skills for all students
• The incorporation of digitisation competences into all degree programmes, through elective courses, specialisations and support for extra-curricular activities
• Enhancing lecturers’ skills in various forms of digital teaching, and sharing best practices
• Investing in infrastructure that will make forms of digital teaching possible.

In some of the faculty’s subject areas, the biggest challenge is to link the programmes more closely with practice, with a view toward improving employment opportunities for graduates. In other subjects, there is a greater need for opportunities to develop and strengthen links to research.

In addition to participating in joint initiatives at UCPH level, during the strategy period SOCIAL SCIENCE will have a particular focus on:

• Strengthening the research base via appointments of academic staff
• Feedback and informal contact between students and researchers
• Improving the pedagogic qualifications of academic staff
• Establishing a student Inno-Lab in connection with the digitisation and data-science theme
• Enhancing external contacts in the business community, with a view to improving job and career opportunities.

The focus will be on:

• Ensuring options for English-language degree programmes for full-degree students
• Providing a global curriculum that ensures representation of different perspectives on the disciplines at a high academic level, in a manner that respects academic traditions
• Recruiting the most talented and committed students from Denmark and abroad
• Helping international students prepare for life in the Danish labour market
• Maintaining and developing courses and degree programmes with an international focus, e.g. “Global Development” and “Security Risk Management”
• Establishing partnerships with leading universities abroad.

Based on a new dynamic co-operation between academic areas on the development and running of degree programmes, SOCIAL SCIENCE will focus on supplementing and enhancing the range of degree programmes it provides. The faculty will also be an active and proactive partner, both at UCPH and in relation to external stakeholders, partly to ensure a greater practical element in the degree programmes.

• Ensuring that students have opportunities to take courses on all study programmes at the faculty and securing the budget for this
• Running workshops, etc. for interdisciplinary groups of students
• Exploring options that will make it easier for students to put together an interdisciplinary master’s programme
• Offering a number of interdisciplinary SOCIAL SCIENCE-based courses for all students at UCPH
• Offering specialisations across existing degree programmes, e.g. in the areas of climate, security and labour-market policy.

SOCIAL SCIENCE will build networks with external stakeholders and clients in order to draw on their experience and target our initiatives in areas in which there is proven demand for our services and where the faculty has specialist competencies.  

• Establishing a continuing and professional education unit at faculty level
• Offering a range of interdisciplinary courses that draw on all relevant research environments at SOCIAL SCIENCE and on co-operation with other academic environments and stakeholders.

Positive learning outcomes require a good study environment. SOCIAL SCIENCE will therefore:

• In connection with the next study environment survey, and in collaboration with the students, identify three focus themes related to improving the study environment
• Run trials with fewer graded exams in the first year of study in an attempt to lower stress levels
  Improve alignment of expectations when choosing degree programmes
• Better integrate students into the local study environment
• Involve student groups in the implementation of the faculty’s strategy, as well as the development of the campus and the subjects.

SOCIAL SCIENCE has efficient programme management and study administration services but we face challenges such as the heavy workload of heads of studies/study board chairs, vulnerable study administrations in the departments, and the lack of capacity to undertake special strategic work. SOCIAL SCIENCE will therefore initiate analysis that will form the basis for the reorganisation of the study administration service area, including:

• Reducing the workload for heads of studies and making the position more attractive
• Ensuring robustness and development opportunities for study administrative staff
• Consolidating strategically important tasks with more specialised units or work functions
• Ensuring a coherent approach to solving increasingly complex problems
• Ensuring the execution of interdisciplinary educational initiatives.

SOCIAL SCIENCE’s researchers often work on a broad range of problems related to national and global societal challenges. They work across subject disciplines and with a number of different partners. One of the faculty’s strengths is that social commitment is a natural part of so many of our employees’ daily lives. During the strategy period, we will supplement existing initiatives with faculty efforts to target the implementation of this commitment. Two initiatives in particular will be key:

• The faculty as a whole will focus on a range of interdisciplinary themes, including social data science, social-science health research, international security and global development, as well as climate and sustainable societies.
• Setting up two–three positions at faculty level to focus on impact and relations with foundations, etc.

In order to promote the University’s target of increasing the social impact of its research and education, and to strengthen co-operation between different academic environments, SOCIAL SCIENCE will – preferably in co-operation with other faculties – establish an interdisciplinary research and education initiative within public policy.

The new centre will use research, education and impact work to address the challenges facing private and public stakeholders in a world in which technological and demographic development, climate change and shifting global power structures create new societal conditions.

The centre will also work closely with public-sector agencies and private companies to formulate specific solutions and tailor-made programmes and courses that will address major societal problems.

• During 2019–2020, a working group will draw up the framework for the centre, which is expected to start work in 2021.

The climate is a major topical issue that mobilises our students and staff, who are committed to building a better and more sustainable society. The climate agenda is a key issue for anyone who wants to understand and change society at national, European and global level. As the climate becomes a key political topic, in line with (or in contrast to) growth, security, democracy, equality, etc., researchers and students must identify the economic, psychological, political, social and cultural logics under which the climate agenda operates. They must also be able to critically relate to the way in which the climate issue is managed politically, as well as the societal consequences of dealing with the crisis.

Navigating the climate agenda will be a key competence for many of our students in their future professional careers. The climate and sustainability are therefore key questions, among others, to which social science students must relate. These issues open up good opportunities for interdisciplinarity, e.g. collaboration with the natural sciences. At the same time, however, the theme also raises classic social science questions.

In other words, the faculty will build on its commitment to the climate and sustainability in the development of its research and teaching. In this context, it is important to bear in mind that SOCIAL SCIENCE is a university faculty, and as such is rooted in critical thinking. This also applies to its activities in the climate area. It should also be noted that the University is responsible for a range of issues relating to travel, buildings, etc. and the faculty is, therefore, unable to take independent initiatives in relation to these topics. 

During the strategy period, SOCIAL SCIENCE will launch a series of tangible initiatives on climate and sustainability, including:

• Setting up a climate and sustainability committee comprising faculty management, academic staff, technical and administrative staff, student groups and operational staff, in order to collect, develop and implement initiatives in this area The committee will, among other things, support student events, discuss transport policy for students and researchers, the green campus, the canteen, etc. The committee will also award an annual “Green Innovation Prize” on Campus Day.
• The faculty will set up and develop a website and ongoing e-communication that describes and profiles its teaching and research in climate and sustainability issues.
• The faculty will develop and offer interdisciplinary courses, as well as continuing and further education, preferably in collaboration with other faculties working in the climate and sustainability field.
• SOCIAL SCIENCE is part of the “Green Accelerators” innovation cooperation.
• The faculty supports networking and lobbies foundations working on climate and sustainability issues with a view to entering into research projects with other (“wet”) subject areas. 

In addition to planned joint initiatives, several departments at SOCIAL SCIENCE work with specific initiatives related to the targets and action plans. For example, the Department of Psychology has adopted a supportive management approach, based on its own research into stress and the working environment.

At faculty level, SOCIAL SCIENCE will:

• As a follow-up to Work Place Assessment 2019, and under the auspices of the cooperation committees, identify three joint initiatives to strengthen the working environment
• Promote increased parallel language use, e.g. by ensuring that administrative staff possess good English-language skills and that international academic staff have good Danish-language skills
• Ensure clear career paths for both academic and technical/administrative staff, cf. also Section 1 (above) on academic staff.
• Draw up best practice for career paths for academic staff in fixed-term appointments, including postdocs and PhD students
• Ensure better use of internal opportunities for mobility for technical and administrative staff, including “shadow schemes”, which involve spending a few days working closely with a colleague somewhere else at UCPH in order to broaden networks and study new problem-solving approaches
• Focus on equality and diversity (participate in UCPH initiatives)
• Develop methods and processes that incorporate user experiences in the development of the administration.