Cutbacks begin: Layoffs hit the Faculty of Science

Sweeping cutbacks at the University of Copenhagen’s (UCPH) Faculty of Science are now hitting home.

A large number of staff — both academic (VIP) and technical-administrative (TAP) employees — were laid off on Thursday 20 November.

The University Post spoke to Nynne Christensen, union representative for technical-administrative staff at the faculty the day after.

»Yesterday was a tough day. It was hard, and it was long. It’s not easy saying goodbye to colleagues who’ve done a really great job,« she told the University Post.

Nynne Christensen does not wish to disclose the exact number of dismissed employees, but says that including voluntary resignations and other mitigation measures, the faculty is losing more than 100 members of staff.

Prior to the layoffs, the faculty had already been announced that 46 applications for voluntary redundancy and seniority schemes had been approved. The current hiring freeze at the faculty has also led to a reduction in 20 staff positions.

Costly building scandal

The deficit at the Faculty of Science is just over DKK 100 million a year and the cuts are intended to balance the budget by 2027.

In an internal newsletter, Dean Bo Jellesmark Thorsen writes that the impact of the cuts varies significantly from department to department.

University Post has requested access to information on how the cuts are distributed across departments, but the request was denied by UCPH.

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The deficit is largely due to increased operating costs linked to two prestige construction projects: the Niels Bohr Building and the new Natural History Museum of Denmark.

The dean of the Faculty of Science has previously told the University Post that the annual operating costs for the two new buildings amount to DKK 89 million a year.

The new Niels Bohr Building ended up running more than DKK 3 billion over budget. According to a memo prepared for the University Board meeting on 1 October 2024, this affects the rent, which is now estimated to be DKK 150 million more costly than originally projected.

The rent is paid collectively by UCPH, which leases the Niels Bohr Building from the Danish state which owns the new facility.

But the bill for the high operating costs falls on the Faculty of Science and the faculty’s cuts are therefore primarily due to these increased operating costs.

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Drained savings

As the University Post has previously reported, management had been aware for years that operating costs would rise substantially once the Faculty of Science took the new Niels Bohr Building into use.

The faculty had therefore set aside funds for this purpose. But as the scandal-ridden building project faced repeated delays, the savings ended up being used instead.

»Universities are not meant to hoard wealth. The funds that we have should be used on research and education. So we began drawing on our savings, and this led to several years of overspending,« was the explanation given by the Faculty of Science’s dean Bo Jellesmark Thorsen in an interview with University Post back in May.

Nynne Christensen finds it puzzling that management didn’t implement any preventive measures earlier, given that they knew a hefty bill was on the way.

»I don’t quite understand why nothing was done at that point. Maybe then we wouldn’t have had to say goodbye to so many people yesterday,« she says.

She emphasises, however, that despite the circumstances, the layoff process »went well«.

Deterioration inevitable

Nynne Christensen does not know the precise breakdown of dismissals between academic and administrative staff.

But many of the administrative staff laid off on Thursday worked close to research and teaching.

»A large part of the purely administrative staff have already been let go during the administration reform, so there weren’t many left to choose from,« says Nynne Christensen.

For this reason, according to the union representative, it is inevitable that the layoffs will affect research and — in particular — education at the faculty.

»That’s why I hope that going forward, out of respect for the highly skilled employees we’ve lost, we’ll be honest about the fact that our education programmes are being degraded. And I hope people allow themselves to use the word ‘degraded’. I’m a bit tired of hearing that things are being ‘changed’ or ‘restructured’. You can’t cut this many staff members without lowering the quality,« says Nynne Christensen.

READ ALSO: The students are also affected by layoffs at the Faculty of Science

This article was first written in Danish and published on 21 November 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.