{"id":182670,"date":"2025-10-24T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T05:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/ku-oekonomi-efter-reformen-det-er-klart-at-det-betyder-meget-om-man-selv-har-valgt-at-flytte\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T09:02:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:02:21","slug":"administration-reform-universitys-finance-staff-reveal-contrasting-journeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/administration-reform-universitys-finance-staff-reveal-contrasting-journeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance staff after the reform: Contrasting journeys"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Half a year with the new administration<\/p>\n

On KUnet, you can now read a series of articles where the deputy directors of the University of Copenhagen (UCPH)’s eight central administrative units take stock, six months after the new administration at UCPH was implemented.<\/p>\n

At the University Post, we are launching a similar series \u2014 where we speak to staff and union representatives.<\/p>\n

This is the second instalment. The first instalment is here: UCPH Education<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After a contentious debate, the new organisation of the administration at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) was rolled out in March 2025. Staff and students have now had six months to get used to the new post-reform reality.<\/p>\n

In a series of articles on the university’s intranet KUnet, UCPH deputy directors of eight central units share how they have experienced the first few months and provide an update from their area of administration.<\/p>\n

At the University Post, we are now launching a similar series, this time speaking with staff and union representatives from across the university.<\/p>\n

The first area was UCPH Education [in Danish here]<\/a>. This week, we turn to UCPH Finance.<\/p>\n

Moved against her will<\/h3>\n

The last time Bettina Starup Mentz was happy with her job was in the summer of 2024. She had otherwise loved her work at UCPH for all of the 12 years that she has been employed, most recently at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC), where she had worked since 2017 and served the past two years as a procurement officer.<\/p>\n

But in the fall of 2024, everything changed.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI was called in to a meeting and told I was being moved. Not partially like some of the others \u2014 I was being moved completely.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Her new role was to be in the internal webshop at UCPH, based in the Panum buildings. New workplace, new colleagues, and entirely new responsibilities.<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt really took me by surprise. I had no idea I could be one of the ones they moved. But you can\u2019t say no. That just wasn\u2019t an option.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Before the meeting, she had no indication that her position was at risk. It didn\u2019t make sense \u2014 not even within the logic of the reform, she felt.<\/p>\n

It was the wrong decision, and they also ended up realising it<\/p>\n

Bettina Starup Mentz, former employee at BRIC<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00bbThe role was a key part of my unit, and it made no sense to move those tasks. It was the wrong decision, and they also ended up realising it.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Bettina Starup Mentz says that in the end her old position was not discontinued \u2014 it was filled instead by another employee who took over Bettina\u2019s responsibilities. This meant that she had to train up her own replacement in the role that she herself had wanted to keep before being moved against her will.<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt was an absurd, and humiliating, situation. The webshop team hadn\u2019t even been told that I was coming. There was poor communication and poor decision making all the way through.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Her new colleagues were nice, she says. But once she was in the new job, the pressure that she had been under for months came to a head in the form of a stress reaction.<\/p>\n

\u00bbThey gave me a warm welcome. They were really the kindest people. But when I sat down to take on my new tasks, my brain just wouldn\u2019t work. I\u2019d had thorough training, and I am a quick learner. But I couldn\u2019t remember anything. I just couldn\u2019t.\u00ab<\/p>\n

She then took stress-related sick leave \u2013 and after six months she was laid off.<\/p>\n

\u00bbLooking back, it just seems so pointless. I was still there, and the job was still there. And I really, really loved that job. It just wasn\u2019t going to be me. I don\u2019t get it.\u00ab<\/p>\n

If she had to point to one thing that could have helped, it would have been if she had felt a greater sense of agency:<\/p>\n

\u00bbBeing moved around like a game piece on a Ludo board, with no regard for your own wishes \u2014 it just gets you down.\u00ab<\/p>\n

The University Post put Bettina Starup Mentz\u2019s criticism to the head of administration at BRIC, Bitten Dalsgaard. She states that she had been instructed to move one employee to the webshop at Panum, and that Bettina was the only one with the right qualifications. She does not recognise the claim that the webshop staff were unaware that Bettina was coming, but says that she is sorry to hear about her experience.<\/p>\n

Budgets that didn\u2019t follow<\/h3>\n

The experience has been very different for senior consultant and economist S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen. He is highly enthusiastic about the opportunities that the reform has led to:<\/p>\n

\u00bbThe administration reform has definitely been a big win for me. And I do believe it will be for UCPH in the long run as well,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI really enjoy the new tasks I\u2019ve taken on, and we also have a fantastic sense of camaraderie in the central finance unit, even though many of us are new here. There\u2019s good energy, lots of ambition, and a lively atmosphere.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Most of his colleagues, he says, have come from other units. But unlike Bettina\u2019s experience, he believes everyone in his team moved voluntarily \u2014 and that, he says, makes a big difference:<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt clearly matters whether you\u2019ve chosen to move. And I\u2019m not blind to the fact that others have had a much less positive experience than I have \u2014 both in terms of the scale of the changes and the impact of being relocated against your will.\u00ab<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:<\/strong> Rector on cuts to Faculty of Science: There is no way around it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen is not uncritical of the reform, he adds. In fact, one of the reasons he applied to work in the central finance unit was because he saw they might need his skills.<\/p>\n

\u00bbAs an economist, it\u2019s important to me that it\u2019s not just about cutting budgets \u2014 there needs to be changes that ensure that the administrative support for the core tasks of UCPH remains at least at the same level, ideally better. What we do has to work its way to the end users,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n

\u00bbI could see there were general issues with the financial management where my skills could be put to better use than where I was before.\u00ab<\/p>\n

So you basically asked to join central finance and put out some fires?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00bbThat\u2019s one way to put it.\u00ab<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t been impressed with the pace of implementation \u2014 both in the decision-making and the communication, and in resolving the uncertainties along the way.<\/p>\n

\u00bbThere are still remnants of operational budgets scattered across the faculties for example \u2014 communications activities, educational initiatives and so on,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

\u00bbThose budgets should have been moved long ago. But there\u2019s been no clarity about what belongs where \u2014 and that should have been sorted out much earlier.\u00ab<\/p>\n

1 March \u2014 a lousy transition date<\/h3>\n

In addition to the budget transfers being delayed, S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen also questions the reform\u2019s start date:<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt\u2019s just not good to implement something like this on 1 March, rather than 1 January,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

Large organisational changes and budget handovers should take place at the turn of the financial year, he believes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just not good to implement something like this on 1 March<\/p>\n

S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen, senior consultant, Corporate Financial Managment, UCPH<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00bbThere are so many operating costs tied to annual one-off payments \u2014 like subscriptions, system licences and the like. So it\u2019s a real hassle to shift budgets in the middle of all that,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI mean, you end up with two months of budget in one place, and 10 months in another.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Why do you think the reform launched on 1 March rather than 1 January?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00bbBecause they weren\u2019t ready,\u00ab S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen replies without hesitation.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t believe it had major financial consequences \u2014 it just made everything more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt\u2019s mostly just created administrative hassle for everyone involved.\u00ab<\/p>\n

This article was first written in Danish and published on 20 October 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.<\/em>
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14:31:24","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2236,"height":1341,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-480x288.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":288,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-768x461.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":461,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-1280x768.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":768,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-1536x921.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":921,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-2048x1228.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":1228,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-290x174.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":174,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-700x420.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":420,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-990x594.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":594}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":false,"alternative_caption":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Transplanted","text":"It forced many University of Copenhagen employees to pack up and move. Some did so more willingly than others. The experiences of two staff members were worlds apart.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Half a year with the new administration<\/p>\n<p>On KUnet, you can now read a series of articles where the deputy directors of the University of Copenhagen (UCPH)’s eight central administrative units take stock, six months after the new administration at UCPH was implemented.<\/p>\n<p>At the University Post, we are launching a similar series \u2014 where we speak to staff and union representatives.<\/p>\n<p>This is the second instalment. The first instalment is here: <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/education-unit-after-the-reform-uncertainty-is-still-the-order-of-the-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UCPH Education<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>After a contentious debate, the new organisation of the administration at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) was rolled out in March 2025. Staff and students have now had six months to get used to the new post-reform reality.<\/p>\n<p>In a series of articles on the university’s intranet KUnet, UCPH deputy directors of eight central units share how they have experienced the first few months and provide an update from their area of administration.<\/p>\n<p>At the University Post, we are now launching a similar series, this time speaking with staff and union representatives from across the university.<\/p>\n<p>The first area was UCPH Education<a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/seks-maaneder-med-den-nye-administration-sagt-paent-saa-er-der-stadig-mange-ting-der-er-oppe-i-luften\/\"> [in Danish here]<\/a>. This week, we turn to UCPH Finance.<\/p>\n<h3>Moved against her will<\/h3>\n<p>The last time Bettina Starup Mentz was happy with her job was in the summer of 2024. She had otherwise loved her work at UCPH for all of the 12 years that she has been employed, most recently at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC), where she had worked since 2017 and served the past two years as a procurement officer.<\/p>\n<p>But in the fall of 2024, everything changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI was called in to a meeting and told I was being moved. Not partially like some of the others \u2014 I was being moved completely.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Her new role was to be in the internal webshop at UCPH, based in the Panum buildings. New workplace, new colleagues, and entirely new responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt really took me by surprise. I had no idea I could be one of the ones they moved. But you can\u2019t say no. That just wasn\u2019t an option.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Before the meeting, she had no indication that her position was at risk. It didn\u2019t make sense \u2014 not even within the logic of the reform, she felt.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It was the wrong decision, and they also ended up realising it<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Bettina Starup Mentz, former employee at BRIC<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00bbThe role was a key part of my unit, and it made no sense to move those tasks. It was the wrong decision, and they also ended up realising it.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Bettina Starup Mentz says that in the end her old position was not discontinued \u2014 it was filled instead by another employee who took over Bettina\u2019s responsibilities. This meant that she had to train up her own replacement in the role that she herself had wanted to keep before being moved against her will.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt was an absurd, and humiliating, situation. The webshop team hadn\u2019t even been told that I was coming. There was poor communication and poor decision making all the way through.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Her new colleagues were nice, she says. But once she was in the new job, the pressure that she had been under for months came to a head in the form of a stress reaction.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThey gave me a warm welcome. They were really the kindest people. But when I sat down to take on my new tasks, my brain just wouldn\u2019t work. I\u2019d had thorough training, and I am a quick learner. But I couldn\u2019t remember anything. I just couldn\u2019t.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>She then took stress-related sick leave \u2013 and after six months she was laid off.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbLooking back, it just seems so pointless. I was still there, and the job was still there. And I really, really loved that job. It just wasn\u2019t going to be me. I don\u2019t get it.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>If she had to point to one thing that could have helped, it would have been if she had felt a greater sense of agency:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBeing moved around like a game piece on a Ludo board, with no regard for your own wishes \u2014 it just gets you down.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>The University Post put Bettina Starup Mentz\u2019s criticism to the head of administration at BRIC, Bitten Dalsgaard. She states that she had been instructed to move one employee to the webshop at Panum, and that Bettina was the only one with the right qualifications. She does not recognise the claim that the webshop staff were unaware that Bettina was coming, but says that she is sorry to hear about her experience.<\/p>\n<h3>Budgets that didn\u2019t follow<\/h3>\n<p>The experience has been very different for senior consultant and economist S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen. He is highly enthusiastic about the opportunities that the reform has led to:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe administration reform has definitely been a big win for me. And I do believe it will be for UCPH in the long run as well,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI really enjoy the new tasks I\u2019ve taken on, and we also have a fantastic sense of camaraderie in the central finance unit, even though many of us are new here. There\u2019s good energy, lots of ambition, and a lively atmosphere.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Most of his colleagues, he says, have come from other units. But unlike Bettina\u2019s experience, he believes everyone in his team moved voluntarily \u2014 and that, he says, makes a big difference:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt clearly matters whether you\u2019ve chosen to move. And I\u2019m not blind to the fact that others have had a much less positive experience than I have \u2014 both in terms of the scale of the changes and the impact of being relocated against your will.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/Rector on cuts to Faculty of Science: There\u2019s no way around it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Rector on cuts to Faculty of Science: There is no way around it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen is not uncritical of the reform, he adds. In fact, one of the reasons he applied to work in the central finance unit was because he saw they might need his skills.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAs an economist, it\u2019s important to me that it\u2019s not just about cutting budgets \u2014 there needs to be changes that ensure that the administrative support for the core tasks of UCPH remains at least at the same level, ideally better. What we do has to work its way to the end users,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI could see there were general issues with the financial management where my skills could be put to better use than where I was before.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p><em>So you basically asked to join central finance and put out some fires?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThat\u2019s one way to put it.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>He hasn\u2019t been impressed with the pace of implementation \u2014 both in the decision-making and the communication, and in resolving the uncertainties along the way.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere are still remnants of operational budgets scattered across the faculties for example \u2014 communications activities, educational initiatives and so on,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThose budgets should have been moved long ago. But there\u2019s been no clarity about what belongs where \u2014 and that should have been sorted out much earlier.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>1 March \u2014 a lousy transition date<\/h3>\n<p>In addition to the budget transfers being delayed, S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen also questions the reform\u2019s start date:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s just not good to implement something like this on 1 March, rather than 1 January,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>Large organisational changes and budget handovers should take place at the turn of the financial year, he believes.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s just not good to implement something like this on 1 March<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen, senior consultant, Corporate Financial Managment, UCPH<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00bbThere are so many operating costs tied to annual one-off payments \u2014 like subscriptions, system licences and the like. So it\u2019s a real hassle to shift budgets in the middle of all that,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI mean, you end up with two months of budget in one place, and 10 months in another.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p><em>Why do you think the reform launched on 1 March rather than 1 January?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBecause they weren\u2019t ready,\u00ab S\u00f8ren Kristoffer Jensen replies without hesitation.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t believe it had major financial consequences \u2014 it just made everything more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s mostly just created administrative hassle for everyone involved.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was first written in Danish and published on 20 October 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.<\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with upcoming events and top University of Copenhagen stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":4539,"name":"Working environment","slug":"arbejdsmiljoe-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4539,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":95,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11489,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":672,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/istock1193927148-1280x768.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182670"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184908,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182670\/revisions\/184908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}