At the beginning of the year, Jens Øllgaard Duus joined DTU as Vice Dean of Education and Head of DTU Learning Lab. In this interview, he talks about the tasks in his portfolio, DTU's ambitions for education and teaching, and how his background as a professor and Head of Section at DTU Chemistry helps him to create results and collaboration across DTU.
Which areas will you help develop and strengthen?
First and foremost, I work closely with Dean Lars D. Christoffersen. Lars has the overall responsibility, and I help him deliver on our joint tasks. We have a good working relationship and have constructively divided the tasks between us.
Among other things, I've taken on the role of Head of Quality. I will be working with DTU's quality assurance systems and institutional accreditation. The quality assurance systems are our guarantee that new initiatives are evaluated and analyzed: Have the initiatives had the desired effect? Can we do something better? Our ambition is always to do better for the students and DTU.
Another task we have divided between us is the relationship with the study programmes. We have put together the education portfolio according to subject areas, and I have the day-to-day responsibility for several programmes within Life Science and Innovation. First and foremost, this gives us a holistic understanding of the programmes and an opportunity to put our professional qualifications into play. My experience from the industry and the professionalism I bring with me as former Head of Section and Head of Studies at DTU Chemistry benefits me in this role. The decision has also been well received at the departments, and it's personally satisfying to be still able to use my core expertise.
You are also the head of DTU Learning Lab. How do you see DTU Learning Lab's role in the organisation?
Good teaching depends first and foremost on our lecturers and their high level of professionalism - this is the core of DTU's teaching. In DTU Learning Lab, we want to build on this and continuously develop new and better teaching methods with the lecturers to maximize the impact of our teaching.
One of our tasks is to train new lecturers in university pedagogy, and experienced lecturers may also need new inspiration and new ways of doing things as well. For example, AI and other digital tools are changing the world around us right now. They are also changing the needs of the industry - in the future, the industry will need engineers who can use AI as a tool in their work. We must address this and make it part of our study programmes and teaching.
Another important task that I have both as Vice Dean and as Head of DTU Learning Lab is related to DTU's new strategy for lifelong learning, which, in practice, will be carried out by DTU Learn for Life in close collaboration with the departments. For DTU Learning Lab, this means that we develop adult didactics to train our researchers to teach professional adults. This is a relatively new and exciting area for DTU.
DTU is to develop new research-based engineering didactics. Why and how?
DTU's Executive Board has decided to fund 28 strategic PhD projects, two of which will focus on perspectives in educational didactics and help build the area as a research field at DTU. DTU Learning Lab will be responsible for this work, along with lecturers and departments, and we have received an enormously positive response from the departments. They have offered a lot of exciting angles and ideas for projects that offer many opportunities in the future.
But we're starting small. It will take at least a couple of years before we can start seeing results from the first projects, and then we will have to start up more projects in parallel. We're looking at how other universities are approaching the work and taking inspiration where we can. And then, of course, the goal is that our results are exciting enough that we can eventually get external funding to develop the research area.
DTU wants to have the best engineering programme in Europe. What will it take to secure and maintain that position?
We have recently revised the polytechnic foundation, which is a series of mandatory courses for all civil engineering students at DTU. Among other things, we introduced programming and focused on a digital mindset early in the course of study. We are also revitalizing the implementation of the CDIO framework in the Bachelor of Engineering programme. CDIO (Conceiving - Designing - Implementing - Operating) is an educational framework that takes a holistic approach to the entire development process of products and systems based on fundamental engineering principles. These are essential steps towards future-proofing our programmes.
In addition, knowledge of sustainability and innovation is a necessary part of the engineers' core competencies, which is why it is also a focus in the overall study programmes.
But the critical point is that our students thrive. All research indicates that well-being is a prerequisite for learning and the ability to be part of communities. Lecturers should be equipped to handle students with challenges, we are currently adjusting the introduction days to include all students, and our physical environment must continue to be inspiring so that students want to be here - even when lectures are over. And we must continue to insist at all levels of the organisation that it is a shared task to ensure that our students and colleagues thrive.
Having said all that, we must remember that we are doing really well. We have good teaching and good students, and we send talented graduates out into the world. We are recognized for this both in Denmark and internationally. But of course, we must always strive to be even better.
