Board defiant before key parliament hearing

The Board of Executives of the University of Copenhagen rejects a critical report by five leading academics. It says that it will not support a new independent investigation into the Penkowa affair.

This is according to the latest release on KUnet (in Danish needs log-in).

The Board’s release comes less than 24 hours before the University of Copenhagen management and Board will face renewed scrutiny in a Danish parliamentary hearing Wednesday at 13.30.

Report ‘biased’

Unhappy with previous inquiries into the University of Copenhagen’s handling of the Penkowa affair, five professors of the Faculty of Health, named the Initiative Group for an Alternative Investigation (IAU), had submitted their own report, critical of university management.

It is this report that the Board has rejected. The academics report will have a new hearing in parliament today however, where it has been submitted to the Committee on Science and Technology. Here, the Board of Executives rejection of the academics’ criticism is likely to be attacked.

The Board does not find reason to doubt the earlier report by the University’s legal advisor Kammeradvokaten. It writes that the IAU group’s rendering of former Dean, now Rector, Ralf Hemmingsen’s handling of events is »biased and not based on written data«.

Will report as it happens

»We recognise of course that you can make your own evaluation of the complete process of the case. But we are convinced that the Kammeradvokaten (University’s legal advisor ed.) has brought forth a thorough, well worked-through, and solid piece of material from which we have based our evaluations and decisions,« the Board writes in its written response.

University of Copenhagen’s intranet KUnet has linked to both the Board’s rejection letter to the five academics, and to their critical report.

miy@adm.ku.dk

Read the University Post’s tongue-in-cheek rendering of the complex fraud case: Penkowa for Dummies here.

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