New guidelines for secondary employment involving high-threat countries

Under these guidelines, AU staff will be required to seek advance approval of any international high-risk secondary employment from their head of department (Arts: head of school). This may include, for example, sideline employment related to high-threat countries which the Danish Security and Intelligence Service has assessed as a high research espionage threat against Denmark, the Faroe Island and Greenland. Another type of high-risk secondary employment involves the threat that knowledge shared for legitimate purposes might be misused by hostile countries, for example for military purposes.

Unfortunately, the security threats we face are so grave that we as a university must take steps to continually strengthen our international research security in certain fields. The aim of the new guidelines is to protect AU’s staff members and prevent situations in which AU’s technology, critical infrastructure and knowledge are compromised. The guidelines were adopted by the senior management team in April and have been presented to and discussed in the Main Liaison Committee.

AU staff with sideline employment which might qualify as high-risk under the above international risk categories will now be required to contact you as head of department/school for approval no later than fourteen days before the sideline employment is scheduled to begin. If you find that the sideline employment is compatible with the staff member’s position at AU, the staff member must disclose it in Pure.

By default, the information will be visible on the researcher’s Pure profile. However, staff will still have the option not to display this information on their profile.

It is important to emphasise that the senior management team continues to encourage and value sideline employment, and views it as an important contribution to our society. It will only be necessary for staff with sideline employment to take precautions in a few – but important – cases.

Please find the updated guidelines here: New guidelines for sideline employment involving high-threat countries (au.dk)

Sideline employment (au.dk)