On Monday the 14th of August people trickled in through the main entrance of Frederiksberg Campus as the clock approached 8:45.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWelcome to Copenhagen Summer University,\u00ab said the slide projected above Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm, provost of research and innovation at UCPH, while he greeted the course participants with a speech.<\/p>\n
\u00bbOur aim is to give you tools to understand the changes that are taking place in society today \u2014 e.g. technological advancements and concepts such as disruption. We hope that, once this week of heavy studies is over, you will return to your jobs better prepared to deal with these changes,\u00ab he concluded, and the specialists and managers went off to their classrooms to become students once again.<\/p>\n
The University of Copenhagen held its 7th Copenhagen Summer University program between the 14th and 24th of August welcoming a record amount of attendees.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThis has been the best year yet,\u00ab said Thomas S\u00f8nderskov, one of the two senior advisors responsible for the program.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWe had 320 participants in total: 25 more people than last year. I think this is due to the reasonable price of our courses, and the fact that lifelong learning is on the rise. Companies know it\u2019s an advantage to keep educating their employees and they\u2019re investing in sending them to courses like these.\u00ab<\/p>\n
\u00bbThere are two reasons why UCPH is doing this Summer University program. One of them is money. But money is not the main reason,\u00ab said Thomas S\u00f8nderskov.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe main reason is to show that the research done at UCPH is relevant for the outside community: industries, state agencies, companies, and markets. To demonstrate that occupational professionals can benefit from our research, and that it has an impact.\u00ab<\/p>\n
\u00bbAnd the money that we make \u2014\u00a0the profit after the training rooms, the food, the travel expenses of lecturers and other such things have been paid \u2014 is then given to the institutes and faculties of the course directors. That money can be very helpful now that UCPH went through serious funding cutbacks.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Each course cost DKK 23.000 (including VAT) and lasted for 5 days.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIt is expensive,\u00ab commented Bo Ulrich Bertelsen, manager of the Children and Youth department in Herning Kommune, and added:<\/p>\n
\u00bbEspecially for those of us who don\u2019t live in Copenhagen since travel expenses, housing, breakfast and dinner were not covered by the DKK 23.000. And this way less people can attend: people who could benefit from these courses but can not pay the fee.\u00ab<\/p>\n
According to Thomas S\u00f8nderskov the law does not allow Copenhagen Summer University to price the courses lower than private providers on the summer school market to ensure fair competition.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Copenhagen Summer University originally consisted of 19 courses: ranging from topics such as Human Genome Variation<\/em> and Biopharmaceuticals Drug Development<\/em>\u00a0to Crime Prevention<\/em>\u00a0and Deep Learning for Data Analytics<\/em>. Three courses had to be cancelled due to an insufficient amount of applicants, but the rest made UCPH a total amount of DKK 7.360.000.<\/p>\n For some course directors the money involved is not the most important incentive.<\/p>\n Such was the case of Zeynep T\u00fcmer, researcher in molecular genetics at Rigshospitalet and the director of the Human Genome Variation course:<\/p>\n \u00bbI don\u2019t do it for the money. Rather, it\u2019s important for me to share my knowledge with others,\u00ab she said.<\/p>\n Her job as a director consisted of designing a relevant course, assembling the scientific content for the 5-day program, and finding and contacting the guest lecturers.<\/p>\n \u00bbI invited 25 lecturers from England, Sweden, Holland and Denmark. These were people I also wanted to hear \u2014 important people. I mean, one of them went to the ministry right after the lecture was over \u2014 to plan Denmark\u2019s national genome project.\u00ab<\/p>\n After the end of the 7th Copenhagen Summer University for specialists and managers, one can ask the question: has UCPH achieved its goal? Did it prove that its research is relevant for the outside community \u2014 for companies and markets?<\/p>\n I had high expectations before I came here. I looked at the list of presenters and it was a very good list: there were lecturers who came from UCPH, but there were also people from big medicinal companies.<\/p>\n Gitte Esmann, global market access manager at Lundbeck<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00bbI think so, yes\u00ab said Gitte Esmann, global market access manager at Lundbeck (a medicinal company), who attended the course Market Access for Pharmaceutical Products<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00bbI had high expectations before I came here. I looked at the list of presenters and it was a very good list: there were lecturers who came from UCPH, but there were also people from big medicinal companies,\u00ab continued Gitte, a woman with a masters in geography and health economics.<\/p>\n \u00bbAnd the course lived up to my expectations. They were able to cover a wide range of topics, and I liked that it had an international focus \u2014one that did not only look at the Danish market for pharmaceuticals.\u00ab<\/p>\n Similarly, the Human Genome Variation course left Rajashree Mishra, PhD candidate in computational biology, satisfied:<\/p>\n \u00bbThis course provided me with a different\u00a0perspective on genetics and genomics studies and its application to\u00a0precision medicine. Studying human genome variation in the US can be more\u00a0complex than in countries like Denmark. This is because the population in the US\u00a0is\u00a0very admixed making it\u00a0harder to\u00a0determine which variation is actually causal for\u00a0the disease you\u2019re analyzing.\u00ab<\/p>\n Rajashree, student at the University of Pennsylvania, then added that \u00bbI also received the opportunity to try certain things I have learned about, but never applied in real life.\u00ab<\/p>\n The course Rajashree attended, led by Zeynep T\u00fcmer, served lectures in the morning and hands-on exercises in the afternoon.<\/p>\n Rajashree read about Copenhagen Summer University in a flyer that was sent to her by the leader of her lab. This same flyer was forwarded to Julia Kieckhaefer, PhD in cell and molecular biology: \u00bbI thought \u2018oh, a free trip to Copenhagen funded by our lab, of course I would like to attend.\u2019\u00ab<\/p>\n Julia, who is a researcher at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the following about the Human Genome Variation course: \u00bba lot of what this course covered I already learned during my PhD. But it was good to go over them again. It\u2019s like re-watching a film: you\u2019re like \u2018oh, I missed that the first time around\u2019 and discover new details.\u00ab<\/p>\n Steffen Bager, from the Danish Medicines Agency, and Karin Toftegaard, from ALK, mentioned that the network of people at these courses was a big positive: \u00bbthere were people from around the world\u00ab said Karin and added that \u00bbwe learned not only from the lecturers but from each other as well.\u00ab<\/p>\n Julia, Rajashree and Gitte also praised networking as a big plus at Copenhagen Summer University: \u00bbwe got to know lecturers and students who work in our field, and we received some e-mail addresses. These could potentially lead to collaborations in the future\u00ab noted Rajashree Mishra from the Human Genome Variation course.<\/p>\n On the last day, Copenhagen Summer University provided the participants with an opportunity to give feedback on the courses and course leaders.<\/p>\n This is why Tina Reth, an attendee of the Crime Prevention course, said \u00bbI had some small issues with the course. I will mention them in the official response-form we were given.\u00ab Then she added \u00bbbut the content of the course was really good.\u00ab<\/p>\n Some of the criticism voiced by participants of the Summer University is as follows: panel discussions were messy; higher standards should be set for the presenters concerning the usage of old presentation slides; and the chairs were too hard in the room just above the auditorium. However, the attendees behind these notes of criticism were happy with the overall experience, and requested that their names not be attached to these comments.<\/p>\nMoney not the driving force<\/h2>\n
Keeping UCPH relevant<\/h2>\n
Not much to\u00a0criticize<\/h2>\n