Danish universities shed professors, lecturers

Danish universities are cutting back the numbers of experienced researchers with job titles such as ‘lecturer’, ‘professor’ and ‘senior researcher’. At the same time, they are hiring more and more staff on temporary contracts with job titles such as adjunct, post-docs, PhD students and technical-administrative staff. This is according to the Danish news site altinget.dk.

A memorandum from the Danish Ministry of Science shows that the eight Danish universities lost 113 permanent research positions in 2009, 42 of them in the University of Copenhagen. This is while the total staff count in the eight universities has increased by 500.

Jens Oddershede, chairman of the university lobby group Universities Denmark fears that research and teaching will be affected.

Universities get a larger part of their funding from projects where PhDs and post docs on temporary contracts are needed, he explains. This means that there is less funding available to uphold permanent research staff.

»There are fewer that can teach, consult, and give advice to researchers, and this is a problem,,« says Jens Oddershede.

clba@adm.ku.dk