Meeting subject: Joint Cooperation Committee (LSU) meeting
Attendees: Kaj Grønbæk, Lene Hjøllund, Olav W. Bertelsen, Marianne Dammand Iversen (online), Kristoffer Arnsfelt Hansen
1. Messages
The department budget for 2025 has now been laid, for the first time according to the principles of the new budget model.
The HoD emphasized that there is no need to fear that the sector sizing will lead to lay-offs.
2. Sector sizing
The distribution of the reduction in seats at the bachelor’s level will be announced next week, revealing the number of seats for each programme.
The LSU briefly discussed some of the other elements of the kandidatreform which have not yet been decided on.
3. Campus 3.0
The University management have announced the grand campus 3.0 plan, which also includes the building of the new 8-story tower that will provide us with the much needed more space for offices as well as student facilities.
According to the documents made available, the final approval will be made by the AU Board in October, and the building should be ready for use in the beginning of 2029. This is more than two years later than the original date, when the discussion about the expansion plans here at Katrinebjerg first started in 2021.
The HoD acknowledged that this delay is putting a stress on both staff and students and the Joint Cooperation Committee expressed a severe concern about this development. The need for more office space is becoming very urgent and the student environment has been in a “temporary state” for a long period of time. Having good student facilities is also an important factor in student recruitment, and similarly for recruitment of academic staff.
The question about re-housing both student facilities and some of the staff offices was also raised.
Finally, a concern about Katrinebjerg becoming more isolated from the rest of the university was raised.
4. AOB
No other business.