Report
Department heads at the Danish universities
The following text is a translated section of the report.
FOREWORD
The department heads at Danish universities play an essential role when it comes to strategy and development at their institutions. In the universities’ day-to-day business they act as a bridge and intermediary between the academic staff and the senior management and strategy development. This view echoes some of the opinions that emerged in a questionnaire survey of department heads at Danish universities conducted by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, which is the subject of this report. Does it come as a surprise?
Yes, in some ways it does, considering how many comments over the years since the amendment to the Danish University Act in 2003 have implied the assumption that the position of head of department is unattractive. This report investigates how the department heads perceive their position and management role.
The survey is one aspect of the work the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters has carried out in recent years and falls within one of the three strategic priorities for our research policy efforts in the years to come:
- Science and society
- Governace and leadership at the universities
- Career paths and working conditions for researchers
This report is the first independent analysis arising from the strategic priority “Management and leadership at the universities”. Our aim with this report is to shine a spotlight on what kind of management and culture we have developed at the universities following the amendments to the law in 2003. We take a close look at the classic middle management tier – the department heads – and explore their role, function and how they see their opportunities and limits. We look more generally at their academic profile and management experience, their expectations for the future, and what motivated them to seek the position at the time. This gives us a unique insight into department heads today in 2023 – as they see themselves.
We discover that there is a lack of diversity among department heads as far as recruitment from other institutions, gender and international experience are concerned. This lends weight to our assumption that Danish research is failing to make use of significant potential by not sufficiently filling managerial positions from the ranks of the many international academics who are already employed at Danish universities or hired from abroad. We see a growing need for managerial competence to support staff from diverse countries and backgrounds. A more international approach to recruitment for managerial positions is one way forward. However, the questionnaire study does not specifically address this particular aspect, which will be a focus in the Royal Academy’s further work on the issue.
The questionnaire was developed in collaboration with the Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy, which also conducted its own questionnaire study among researchers at the universities. We are grateful to them for our successful collaboration and for the opportunity to compare the two studies in specific areas, which made the responses all the more interesting! For example, how is the outlook of the department heads reflected in the wishes and expectations of the academic staff, and how is authority exerted in the departments?
We’d like to express our heartfelt thanks to all the department heads at Danish universities who have spent time and care on answering the questionnaire. We would also like to thank the researchers and department heads who throughout the process have helped us to refine the questionnaire and to improve the relevance of the study and the report. Our discussions with you have been invaluable.
We hope that many of you will find the study together with our conclusions and recommendations interesting and beneficial. We highly recommend that departments, researcher communities and research policy stakeholders use it as a solid starting point for the important debate about how best to support the academic staff and management at Danish universities.
We would like to say a special thank you to Jonas Krog Lind, Majka Holm, Thor Blond and Karin Kjær Madsen in the Royal Academy’s Secretariat for designing the study and the report.
We hope you enjoy reading it.
Marie Louise Nosch, president
Thomas Sinkjær, secretary-general
MAIN CONCLUSIONS OF THE ANALYSIS
LINCHPIN OF THE UNIVERSITIES
Most of the department heads at the various universities view their position as prestigious and attractive and feel that they have room to maneuver when it comes to major decisions. Their position comes with a heavy workload. It emerged from discussions with current department heads that many of them see their position as influential and rewarding. Owing to the commitment and influence which the department heads describe as having, they play an essential role in solving the present and future challenges of the universities.
COOPERATION WITH ACADEMIC STAFF
While most department heads respond positively about their department’s ability and willingness to involve the academic staff, the feedback from academic staff is more critical. This suggests that there are challenges in the cooperation between department manage-ment and academic staff. This analysis looks at whether departments have found satisfactory ways to involve staff and whether the academic staff in turn feel that they are involved to a sufficient degree.
LACK OF DIVERSITY
Department heads tend to be highly similar in type. Typically, they are middle-aged, male, recruited from the department in which they currently hold a professorship, and have an academic career in Denmark under their belt. The gender and age profile reflects the recruitment base from which the university management hires department heads. The same does not apply to the international profile.
DIFFICULT CONDITIONS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
In many instances the analysis finds that the feedback from the heads of social sciences and humanities (SSH) departments is considerably more negative than the feedback from science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) departments. This is particularly evident when it comes to how they experience the higher management and how they rate the attractiveness of their job.
INSTITUTIONAL DIFFERENCES
The analysis finds that factors such as whether a university is old or new or size of department do not seem to play any significant role in the responses from the department heads. Nonetheless, these were factors that were highlighted in the research literature and the discussions preceding the analysis as being significant for potential differences – an indication that differences between department heads mostly have to do with the individual head of department, the main fields of the department and the immediate environment.
The conclusions are presented in an arbitrary order and are not ordered by importance.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Proceeding from the conclusions in this report, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters proposes the following recommendations.
REFORM BREAK
Establishment of a more long-term, stable framework for strategic maneuver should become a political goal for the Danish university sector. Over many years the university sector has undergone many far-reaching changes. The reform of the framework conditions for the Danish university sector, with changes constantly on the horizon and ensuing implementation phases, is taking its toll on university staff. The analysis points to a definite need among department heads and academic staff for consolidation, stability and predictability.
FORUM FOR DEPARTMENT HEADS
A forum should be set up for department heads to share knowledge and develop best practice. The forum should be cross-disciplinary and pan-university, ideally neutral, and could be facilitated by stakeholder organisations such as Universities Denmark and the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs, now known as DM. It would be particularly relevant to share collegial and international experience with regard to involvement, co-determination and recruitment of academic staff. This would require resources to be allocated at the universities for implementation of best practice.
SSH DEPARTMENTS
The higher management at universities should be attentive to the social science and humanities departments. They should help to establish the right framework conditions in these departments to ensure that there are qualified and motivated candidates to fill the departments’ managerial positions in the future. It is the responsibility of the higher management to ensure the quality and appeal of both fields.
DIVERSITY AND TALENT POOL
The university management should, as a development goal, give greater priority to diversity, management training and talent development for their department managerial staff. For this, the recruitment base must provide scope for prioritising diversity. Diversity is not merely about representation of academic staff; it also serves to improve management by ensuring a more diverse group of leaders with a broader range of skills and new approaches to tackle the tasks which the position brings. This is backed by the findings of the analysis.
SUPPORT AND RECOGNITION
The university management and others should ensure that the position of head of department has a favourable image and is presented in such a way that today’s department heads continue to be engaged and the best candidates are attracted in the future. The decision to take on managerial responsibility in the departments should continue to be meaningful, and this means that the work carried out by department heads should be given the necessary support and recognition.
ALTERING THE POST
The post of head of department should be changed from an administrative post to an academic post with a special management allowance. An academic position signals academic legitimacy and, moreover, is in line with how the position of head of department is regarded internationally.
HIRING IN TEAMS
The universities should explore the possibility of hiring teams to the position of head of department to make the appointment more attractive. This type of appointment would also allow combined posts that would give the head of department more time for both managerial tasks and research.
POSITION AFTER APPOINTMENT
The universities should ensure that all department heads are offered a position to return to. Uncertainty about their own career prospects makes career planning difficult for department heads and is also a major problem for a head of department who, for example, is seeking an extension.
The recommendations are presented in an arbitrary order and are not ordered by importance.
Read or download the full rapport from Royal Academy here:
