The Staff’s Column
DIAS, Ambitious, inspiring – and open
DIAS is central to SDU’s ambitious policy to raise the quality of research. DIAS recruits new talents to the University, creates collaboration with top researchers across the faculties and invites all SDU researchers to be curious.
Did you know that DIAS hosts open lectures several times a month featuring top researchers from abroad and Denmark, and you are invited to attend? Did you know that DIAS has a number of interdisciplinary groups that welcome relevant SDU researchers? Did you know that DIAS has a society of young researchers, the Society of Fellows, which invites ten early-career SDU researchers to join them every year?
It is worth opening a column about DIAS with these questions, because DIAS can easily come across as secluded to SDU researchers who do not have a formal DIAS affiliation. However, DIAS is built to serve as a lift for SDU’s researchers: Not everyone can join at once, but the lift is going up and down. No researchers are employed in DIAS; no one is here permanently; our doors are open; and our community must strengthen SDU.
It follows from our clear ambition to attract new strong talents to SDU that we cannot recruit early-career researchers – DIAS Fellows – from SDU. They must come from outside. But DIAS does recruit top researchers from SDU’s own ranks, our DIAS Chairs. Their task is to create an academic community for the benefit of the Fellows and themselves. Currently, we have 36 Chairs. In 2025, we will recruit Chairs, i.e. SDU professors affiliated with DIAS, from outside for the first time.
How do we recruit? Applicants from outside, for both Fellow and Chair positions, must apply for a position at a faculty with which we have already agreed that the position will also be affiliated with DIAS. DIAS will then be involved in the assessment and employment process, and DIAS will help onboard the new employee. Whereas this is the first time that we are recruiting external Chairs, we have been running recruitment rounds for Fellows for more than seven years, and the efforts continue.
Chairs from SDU are recruited in a dialogue between the DIAS Director, the established Chairs and the deans. It is important to spot not only the particularly talented and enterprising professor, but also the top researcher who is energised by being part of and can contribute to DIAS, which is a curiosity-driven community. Yes, it actually takes a special personality to be in DIAS: you have to be curious across academic boundaries and gain energy from the unexpected. The match is all-important. No one is paid for being affiliated with DIAS.
DIAS’ contribution to SDU is thus the human quality that we contribute. When we invite strong researchers in and put them together with other strong but unexpected and academically different researchers, they are challenged and become keener and more curious, which ultimately benefits their departments and their groups. If you want to come along, do attend our lectures or workshops, sign up for our newsletter, or stop by.
