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

The room was packed to capacity when Landscape Architecture students at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) convened a crisis meeting on Wednesday 10 December. They wanted to address budget cuts, staff layoffs, and the future of their discipline.

The worry is that cutbacks at the Faculty of Science — which has had to let go of more than 100 employees — will have serious consequences for their education programme.

Vivian Kvist Johannsen is head of the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN) that includes the Landscape Architecture programme. She said that more than 10 staff members at the department had been dismissed, and that a further 25 had accepted voluntary redundancy.

We’re afraid the quality will just die out

Aske Sahl, deputy chair of the Association of Landscape Architecture Students

The design-related part of the degree programme has been especially hard hit by the cuts. UCPH will not release exact numbers, but according to the association Danish Landscape Architects, four out of twelve design lecturers on the programme have been dismissed, while a fifth has stepped down voluntarily.

This has led to deep concern among students about the future of their subject and profession.

»I’m starting my master’s next year. Will I even be able to complete it, or will it end up being some kind of joke master’s degree?« asked Aske Sahl, deputy chair of the Association of Landscape Architecture Students (FLS), before adding:

»We’re afraid the quality will just die out.«

The deficit at the entire Faculty of Science is just over DKK 100 million per year, mostly due to increased operating costs related to two large prestige building projects — the Niels Bohr Building and the new Natural History Museum of Denmark — amounting to DKK 89 million annually.

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

Department hit harder than others

Associate Dean for Education at the Faculty of Science Andreas de Neergaard also attended the meeting.

In a subsequent interview with the University Post, he acknowledged that IGN is one of the hardest-hit departments.

»The numbers Vivian (Kvist Johannsen, ed.) presented today — with more than 25 voluntary departures and more than 10 dismissals — are definitely at the high end,« he said.

»IGN has been hit hard in the sense that it entered the round of cuts with an already tight budget, as it, unlike other departments, had not been running a surplus. This means that they have to solve their own budget issues while also contributing to the overall savings at the Faculty of Science. So IGN is at a disadvantage from the outset,« said Andreas de Neergaard.

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

Associate dean not worried about competitiveness

Andreas de Neergaard reiterated at the meeting that the department still retains the necessary skilled staff to run the Landscape Architecture programme at a high level.

For this reason, he is also not concerned about whether the programme can continue to compete with the Landscape Architecture programme at the Royal Danish Academy, even with heavily reduced design subjects.

»That’s the least of my concerns, I would say. It might sound incredibly naïve. But the placement of Landscape Architecture within IGN is a unique setup — as we have all the underlying disciplines like environmental law, nature management, biology, forestry, botany, and so on. We have a huge array of experts who can strengthen the professional profile of our landscape architecture students. And I believe these are exactly the skills for which there is a growing demand in the industry,« the associate dean said.

This is contradicted by an opinion piece in the media outlet Byrummonitor, where 12 associations and organisations from the industry express deep concern about the future of the discipline following the UCPH layoffs.

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

Concern for loss of unifying thread

If you cut the design element of the degree, you cut what it even means to be a landscape architect. This is according to Otto Tiedt Andreasen, who is responsible for communications at the Association of Landscape Architecture Students (FLS).

»When you’re planning or carrying out an intervention in a landscape, there are many fields of expertise at play: botany, ecology, legislation, history, planning, management. And then there’s design. Design is the link that ties all these fields together. Without it, all the fields just stand there on their own,« he says.

The question is whether the concerned students were reassured by the meeting with management.

»No,« is Otto Tiedt Andreasen’s short answer.

The FLS expects the debate over the future of their degree programme to continue — both within the department and in the broader professional community.

This article was first written in Danish and published on 15 December 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.