Strategic discussions will take up quite some time in the coming year

Many of us are now come back from our holidays and well underway with our work, hopefully with recharged batteries. The renewed energy should prepare us for picking up the threads from before the holidays and for tackling the challenges facing AGRO. Luckily, most of our future challenges are positive, but unfortunately we cannot disregard the fact that there are also threatening clouds on the horizon.

This autumn and winter, we will work on the AGRO strategy for 2020-2025. It is going to be a long and exciting process. Though we started the process in 2018, the final strategy is not expected to be ready until in the middle of 2020. This is partly due to the fact that the AGRO strategy will follow the schedule for the strategic work for AU and partly the decision made on splitting ST into two faculties each headed by a dean who will not start till in the new year (for further information click here). Our strategy must be both visionary, ambitious, and reflect the needs of society for, for instance, sustainable food production and food consumption, circular bioeconomics and climate initiatives. Yet, at the same time, it is very important that the strategy is adjusted to the possibilities seen by the university management, which contributes to making it a long process.

An important strategy task that is right at hand is to follow up on the many, excellent recommendations from the international evaluation, including in particular the preparation of a plan for recruitment (see earlier article). This subject will of course be on the agenda of the future SeniorVIP meeting in November. As something new, also JuniorVIP will be invited to participate in the first day of the meeting. At the request of some of the juniors, we will try out a so-called MadScience concept. The objective is that through this we will obtain a better knowledge of the areas of expertise in the department and thus be able to create a stronger basis for cooperation internally in AGRO. The idea will be started up already at the course for JuniorVIP in Agroecology on 3^rd-4^th September. I would like to praise our JuniorVIP again for their initiatives and encourage them to continue their positive and energetic efforts for the benefit of everybody in the department. 

Welcome to the CGB section

In continuation of the decision on splitting ST, a group of employees at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, viz. the section of Crop Genetics and Biotechnology (CGB) which is located in Flakkebjerg, has decided to become part of AGRO. I am happy about this decision because it will strengthen the cooperation in Flakkebjerg and AGRO’s public sector consultancy within plant genetic research. The formal integration will be effective as from 1 January 2020. However, already as from this autumn, the CGB employees will receive AGRO Biweekly and they will be invited to relevant meetings in AGRO Flakkebjerg. I would ask you all to give our new colleagues a warm welcome.

Freedom of research, the integrity and independence of scientists

In 2018, an investigation on freedom of research was made at AU (for further information click here). I was among the persons who were interviewed about this important subject, which has subsequently been discussed and is still being discussed at AU. The DCA report no 158 with main authors from AGRO, which was published in June 2019, has subsequently given cause to a sudden extensive media debate about this subject. The allegation made by some scientists and others is that the results shown are influenced by the interest group that has contributed to financing the research (se response from AU). These allegations are of course baseless. I am pleased that the scientists involved from AGRO have handled the matter in a professional manner and that DCA has been very supportive. That said I would like to add that in the future we must focus more on the contracts we make with various interest groups simply to avoid that the surroundings think that we can be affected one-sidedly by certain interest groups. It is therefore important that we entered into a framework agreement with SEGES last year on experimental, development and research activities. In the future, we will enter into similar framework agreements with other interest groups and companies.

Welcome to communication officer Camilla Brodam

As most of you will know, communication officer Janne Hansen chose to retire on 1 August 2019. I am therefore very happy to welcome Camilla Brodam as AGRO’s new communication officer as of 1 September 2019. Camilla is 38 years old and joins us from a position as communication officer at BSS. Camilla will visit all sections to meet all of you.

We must keep a watchful eye on the economy

Back to the threatening clouds on the horizon as mentioned in the introduction. The economy is to some extent still haunting us, but we have made a great effort to gain better control of things. The budgets of all sections have been scrutinized several times, and for the first time in many years, we now have complete project descriptions and staffing plans for more or less all employees. I would like to thank the section leaders, the project economists and the secretaries for a positive cooperation that should result in fewer unpleasant surprises during the coming year.

It does not mean, however, that we will let go of the reins. We will not automatically get more money. Therefore, we still need to obtain more external funding for research at the same time as we keep internal costs down. The salaries of the employees increased by approx. 5% from 2018 to 2019. I am pleased about this on behalf of the employees, but – all things being equal – this means that we will have to increase the efficiency correspondingly, as our grants will not increase. I hope that we will be able to attract more external funding and to keep the internal costs at the same level as last year so that we can achieve the 2019 budget targets.