124 jobs lost at Faculty of Science — academics fear lasting damage

A total of 66 staff members were dismissed by the Faculty of Science at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) in its just concluded round of layoffs. This is according to figures presented by Faculty of Science management at a meeting of the faculty’s cooperation committee and subsequently published on the UCPH intranet.

Voluntary redundancies and retirement packages for senior staff bring the total number of staff reductions to 124.

The cuts will have tangible consequences for research, teaching, and working conditions, according to union representatives for both academic and technical-administrative staff, as well as the Academic Council at the Faculty of Science. They criticise management’s handling of the financial situation.

The faculty has a total recurring annual DKK 100 million deficit, largely due to increased operating costs from the prestige construction projects, the Niels Bohr Building and the new Natural History Museum of Denmark.

READ ALSO: Cutbacks begin: Layoffs hit the Faculty of Science

Real consequences

The 66 dismissals consist of 39 academic staff and 27 technical-administrative staff. On top of these, 26 voluntary redundancy agreements and 32 senior staff retirement agreements have been made.

According to Nynne Christensen, union representative for technical-administrative personnel at the Faculty of Science, the numbers actually underestimate the true consequences.

»If we add it all up, the Faculty is losing 124 employees, some of whom are part-time. But on top of this, there are many vacant positions that haven’t been refilled, and at the same time fewer external lecturer staff are being brought in. So in that sense, the real loss may actually be greater,« she says.

Nynne Christensen points out that the loss is significant relative to the faculty’s total staff headcount. It’s not just about numbers — it’s about functions, she says. According to the union representative, this will inevitably have real impact.

»Either the range of courses will become narrower, or the quality will have to be lowered. Those are the only two options,« she says.

Essential skills cut

According to Nynne Christensen, many of the dismissed technical and administrative staff were closely involved with the faculty’s core tasks.

»We’re talking about lab technicians, technical staff, laboratory managers, and research consultants. People who work directly alongside research and teaching staff, supporting academic staff on a daily basis,« she says.

When those roles disappear, she says, responsibilities are increasingly shifted onto remaining academics.

»It means that academic staff not only have to teach and do more research — they also have to take on tasks that were previously handled by technical-administrative staff. This takes time away from teaching and supervision,« she says.

READ ALSO: Students confront management: »Will my master’s be a joke degree?«

Tougher circumstances for students

This concern is shared by Peter Waaben Thulstrup who represents academics at the Faculty of Science.

He points out that fewer staff means more students will have to share fewer teachers and supervisors.

»When there are fewer academic staff, it means there are more students per lecturer. That affects teaching, supervision, and the opportunities students have to write bachelor’s projects and master’s theses,« he says, and continues:

»It simply won’t be possible to deliver the same standard of teaching as before.«

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

Peter Waaben Thulstrup predicts that some courses will be cancelled, and that degree programmes will be changed.

Dean of the Faculty of Science Bo Jellesmark Thorsen stated already on 12 December in an internal faculty newsletter that management is considering »offering more joint degree programme courses, merging closely related courses, and discontinuing elective courses with very low enrolment.«

In addition, the faculty has »taken steps to close down a continuing education activity with very low enrolment.«

Peter Waaben Thulstrup emphasises at the same time that many degree programmes at the Faculty of Science rely on external research funding to support student projects and theses — increasing pressure on the researchers who remain.

»A significantly greater workload is being placed on remaining academic staff, and this raises the fundamental question about whether the same level of quality can be maintained,« he says.

The cutbacks at the Faculty of Science are distributed unevenly across the faculty’s departments.

According to Peter Waaben Thulstrup, the hardest hit departments are Biology; Plant and Environmental Sciences; Nutrition, Exercise and Sports; and Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.

The University Post has requested access to information on the exact breakdown of the cuts, but the University of Copenhagen has refused to disclose it.

The University Post has also attempted to secure interviews with Bo Jellesmark Thorsen and the University of Copenhagen’s Rector, David Dreyer Lassen, but both have declined to comment.

READ ALSO: Rector on cuts to Faculty of Science: There’s no way around it

Academic Council: »Collective failure of management«

The Academic Council at the Faculty of Science has also criticised the process. In a 4 December statement, the council wrote that the financial situation had arisen from many contributing factors — including operating costs for new buildings and the UCPH administration reform — but also from more fundamental problems in budget management and in shifting management priorities.

The council concluded that this was »a collective failure of management.«

Chair of the Academic Council, Professor Hanne Andersen, elaborates on the criticism, saying that the situation developed over a longer period without it being tackled in a timely manner.

»If you go through the meeting minutes, you can see that the structural deficit has been known for several years. So the question is whether this could have been addressed earlier and more gradually,« she says.

She emphasises that the criticism is not about assigning blame to individuals, but about responsibility at a systemic level.

»It’s hard to point to one person and say that this is their fault. But if no one takes responsibility, we have a total absence of accountability. That’s why we have to speak of a collective failure of management,« she says.

READ ALSO: University of Copenhagen needs 75,000 m² cut to offset financing shortfall

Nynne Christensen agrees with the criticism.

»This is a very unfortunate turn of events caused by something that is ultimately a management responsibility, namely taking care of finances. Employees are now paying the price,« she says.

The Academic Council is to meet for a specially convened session this January to discuss what recommendations it should make to management to prevent a similar situation from arising again.

Breach of trust and calls for transparency

Both union representatives and the Academic Council believe that the round of layoffs has eroded the trust between the Faculty’s staff and its management.

According to Hanne Andersen, they need more budget planning transparency and better communication at multiple management levels going forward.

In Nynne Christensen’s view, UCPH has focused on too many parallel projects.

»There have been far too many projects running at the same time. This leads to a breakdown in oversight throughout the organisation — and that’s how you end up in situations like this,« she says.

She reckons the issue should have been tackled sooner.

»There’s been a failure to act in time. Management should have made sure that the Faculty of Science acted earlier so that we didn’t end up in this situation,« she says.

Asked about her confidence in faculty leadership going forward, Nynne Christensen responds:

»I think there is now a huge task ahead of us in terms of rebuilding trust between senior management and the faculty’s staff,« she says.

Trouble ahead

Nynne Christensen believes that the layoffs could damage the international reputation of UCPH.

Peter Waaben Thulstrup agrees and links this to a fundamental issue with academic careers: universities expect a high level of specialisation, but this, at the same time, makes employees less flexible on the wider job market. If jobs are are seen to lack stability — this will reduce researchers’ interest in applying to UCPH.

»When we repeatedly go through major rounds of layoffs — including cuts to core skills — people lose faith in this being a place where you can build a career,« he says.

The key question, he says, is whether the organisation will truly learn from this process.

»I really hope so. There’s not much more I can do than hope. I expect it also hurts at the management level to be in this situation. The university’s internal finances are incredibly complex, and hard to decipher. But we will, of course, keep a close eye on the future financial situation,« says Peter Waaben Thulstrup.

There is one, particularly important, expense that needs to be clarified for the sake of the future as he sees it:

»It’s crucial that we get clarity on what the Niels Bohr Building will actually cost us in rent. If we don’t figure this out, we risk facing a major financial shortfall«.

This article was first written in Danish and published on 18 December 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.