Thank you for your efforts in 2024

The Danish Government and Parliament have succeeded in implementing an agreement on a green tripartite. This will leave a massive mark on a sustainable development of the Danish landscape and agriculture. I also find that it is beginning to leave its mark on the discussion in other European countries. There they look at this agreement with some wonder at how such a thing can be done at all. But it also puts us in a position of strength in relation to the research landscape in Europe. We have strengthened this through cooperation agreements with WUR and INRAE.

We face a very large task in relation to supporting the green transition and the basis for the implementation of the green tripartite. This requires research, but it is also crucial that this research is targeted at the problems, and here coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration are needed. We must therefore strengthen our knowledge of each other's research and the possibilities for research collaboration. Our AGRO Days provided good examples of opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, but we can do even better. We will therefore continue to arrange interdisciplinary seminars in the Department in 2025. This presupposes commitment and a willingness to collaborate, but I think that this is present in the department – and it is very promising.

There have been quite a few changes in the organisation of the department in 2024, and here I will restrict myself to pointing out a few elements. We have welcomed the SESS group from EcoScience, and they have already become well integrated into the new ABD section with Niels Holst as the head of section. We have appointed Ida Thoft as the new head of the secretariat, which is also growing and being reorganised in order to better support the department. We also have some new heads of section. Mette Vestergård has taken over from Mogens Nicolaisen in PLANMIK, Marie Trydeman Knudsen has taken over from Tommy Dalgaard in SYSTEM, and from 1 January Jim Rasmussen takes over from Mathias Andersen at KLIMA. A big thank you to the outgoing heads of section for their solid efforts, and a warm welcome to Mette, Marie and Jim. We have a very well-qualified and hard-working department management team.

We are well underway with a generational change in the department among both academic and technical staff. At the same time, we are growing in the number of employees, and this is a major strain on the efforts related to hiring and receiving new employees. Thanks to all for helping with this. I think we're succeeding in getting our new employees well integrated into our working community. It is crucial that we maintain and develop a collaborative culture in the department. We are well supported through considerable external research funding, but there is, of course, a need for us to continue securing our research funding.

This autumn, new students started our new BSc in Plant and Food Science. Unfortunately, with far too few students. Therefore, we are strengthening our recruitment efforts. This is an effort that is enormously important – not only for us, but also for society. There is a great need for a well-educated workforce in this area. To improve our ability to recruit students, we have received approval for offering the programme in English. However, this will not happen until 2026 at the earliest. In 2025, the aim is to recruit as many Danish students as possible. It's a battle we have to win.

In 2025, we will be facing an international evaluation of our research efforts. There will be a visit from an evaluation panel in the autumn of 2025. In the spring, we will have to prepare the background material for the evaluation. We are now in the process of obtaining the acceptance of the proposed members of the evaluation panel. We have put together a good panel which can provide us with good input for revising our strategy. However, our mission remains the same – supporting the green transition of agriculture. Thank you all for your substantial effort for that.