Successful practice-oriented teaching is the subject of a systematic research effort at DTU in Ballerup, writes president Anders Bjarklev.
On Monday, 27 September, DTU's board of governors held an ordinary meeting and its annual strategic seminar. I have been looking forward to both. First and foremost, since this time, we were able to hold the meeting physically and present our university to the chair of the board, Karin Markides, for the first time. Corona has prevented us from meeting physically in the past, as Karin Markides lives in Yerevan, where she is a professor and president of the American University of Armenia.
I have also looked forward to both meetings because they took place at DTU Ballerup Campus. This allowed the board to meet with Ballerup municipality's mayor, Jesper Würtzen (S), who gave a presentation. A presentation in which he emphasized, among other things, the importance of DTU's presence in and collaboration with Ballerup municipality and DTU's collaboration with the many companies located there.
"DTU Engineering Technology contributes to targeted technology transfer that creates growth and development in society."
Anders O. Bjarklev, rektor
It is no coincidence that DTU has always felt at home in the municipality. Establishing the new department, DTU Engineering Technology, on 1 January of this year was the preliminary culmination of a journey starting with the merger between DTU and the Copenhagen University College of Engineering back in 2013. Our main task is to educate Bachelors of Engineering (BEng), and we do that with great success.
Here, we offer highly specialized teaching, with the focus being on technology implementation. We have well-equipped laboratories and workshops with highly competent lecturers who help the students convert theory into practice. And we are close to small and medium-sized enterprises. They utilize the students' competences and innovativeness through projects and internships while also gaining direct access to qualified labour.
But with DTU Engineering Technology's name and status, we also marked that the university's department in Ballerup is much more than a campus, where we teach future bachelors of engineering. We wanted to combine our successful vocational teaching approach with systematic research activities by establishing an actual department.
With the collection and scientific processing of data, we expect that the department will be able to contribute to an even more targeted technology transfer that creates growth and development in society and realize the ambition that DTU offers Europe's best engineering education.