The study boards: What you need to know

Elections are being held for the study boards at the University of Copenhagen. But what does a study board actually do? And can you vote for it? Here are the short answers to these questions.

What do the study boards do?

A study board is a democratically elected body at the various departments throughout the University of Copenhagen’s (UCPH) campuses. It is, in other words, a local board that represents a department’s various subjects.

The study boards are responsible for planning and developing its study programmes. This means that the members read the students’ course evaluations and approve plans for how the teaching should be organised. This involves drawing up curricula – i.e. the academic basis of the degree programme – organising exams and processing applications for credit transfer or exemptions. The study board has more subject-specific and localized authority than that of the University Board and the Academic Council.

Who sits on a study board?

A department’s study board is made up of one half researchers and one half students. The number of members on the individual study boards varies – it is the dean of the faculty that determines the number of members. There is a minimum of four members of a study board and a maximum of ten members.

The department will have at least one student and one staff representative per study programme (unless no one has been nominated for election). The Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, for example, includes representatives from the Department of Comparative Literature and Modern Culture, the Department of Art History and Visual Culture, the Department of Musicology and Dance Studies, and the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies.

Academic staff members are elected for three years, while students are elected for one year at a time.

Who can I vote for on the study board ?

It will typically be the various student political organizations that nominate one or more candidates for a seat on the study board on the different degree programmes.

Many programmes nominate only one candidate for the study board — some programmes nominate no-one. If that is the case, there will be an uncontested election, and that really just means that there is nothing to vote on. You can check how many candidates are standing for election as a representative of your degree programme on the candidate list on KUnet.

The voting takes place electronically via KUnet.

READ MORE ABOUT THE ELECTIONS in this guide to the university elections