– It is someone who feels familiar that someone feels familiar
Budapest (Khrono): – Some of the most active in the debate have been very concerned with what is happening in the United States.
Jesper Langergaard, director of Danish Universities, pauses for a moment before continuing:
– If you are researching something, it is natural that you are interested in the topic. If you are researching the environment, it can be very relevant that you engage in the debate around the environment. If you are researching gender, then it is relevant that you participate in the debate on gender.
They recommend all researchers to be active in the public debate, but one must distinguish between one’s own views and research, he tells Khrono.
– If you participate in the debate as a researcher, you must refer to your research. There are probably some who have come up with some personal things that do not go along with their research, but in general we think it is right that you interfere in the debate, with your research. It is a duty you have as a researcher.
Received the decision from the Folketing
It is just over a year since the Danish research debate really took off. After weeks and months of debate, the Folketing decided the following:
«The Folketing has the expectation that the universities’ managements ensure that the self-regulation of scientific practice works. This means that there is no unification, that politics is not disguised as science, and that it is not possible to systematically evade justified professional criticism ».
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Behind the proposal to Henrik Dahl from the Liberal Alliance and Morten Messerschmidt from the Danish People’s Party. When Langergaard points out that someone has been preoccupied with what is happening in the USA, the separate Dahl applies, he says.
A few days later, a call appeared in the newspaper Politiken, signed by over 3000 researchers, who thought the decision was of “intense lobbying and political campaigns against certain research environments controlled by politicians and debaters on the political spectrum”.
Langergaard in Danish Universities, which represents the eight Danish universities, thought the debate had not been conducted in a proper way.
“Entire areas of research have been hung out on the basis of claims and assumptions without root in reality,” he told Science report the gang.
Anders Bjarklev, who heads the Rector’s College at Danish Universities, also retires:
– An attack on research freedom, he said.
Accusations of activism
Dahl fought hard in a war of words in which the universities had to defend themselves against guns such as «pseudoscience» and «identity-political activism».
– We do not know at all what he means by active research, says Langergaard a year later.
Before we move on: This is not the only political dispute that has plagued Danish universities.
When Khrono meets Langergaard in Budapest, during the annual conference of the European University Association (EUA), it is to take the tempo on two fronts between politicians and university leaders in Denmark in the last few years.
Shortly after the decision in the Folketing, the Social Democratic government’s press conference held something completely different.
– This is one of the biggest decentralization measures ever. It’s not done in a day, it’s clear, but this is one of the great moves to reverse the trend, struck Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen quickly.
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Together with ministers, she presents a radical plan to move study places out of the four largest cities, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg. 25 new study places were to be spread across the Danish landscape, 7,500 study places were to be established outside the big cities, the number of students in the big cities was to be reduced by ten percent. The institutions themselves could choose whether they wanted to move out of study places, or cut study places.
The universities were taken to bed.
The debate continues on freedom of speech
We need to get back to the relocation battle.
But first to the accusations from the Folketing. In early May, the debate returned to Congress when the Education and Research Committee held a hearing on the so-called Chicago Principles, eight principles that were enacted by the University of Chicago in 2014, to ensure freedom of expression. 80 American universities have signed these, or formulated similar.
The hearing came after the Liberal Alliance before Christmas raised a proposal that the principles should be written into the Danish University Act. It did not receive support, but several parties said, according to Omnibus, a university newspaper at Aarhus University, that it was inspiration to get from the USA.
– Does the free spirit and research live on in the Danish universities? This is the basic question raised by committee chair Kasper Sand Kjær (S), as referred to by the newspaper.
Langergaard believes the principles are already in place.
– But the debate has contributed to all universities now working to get guidelines to confirm the freedom of expression and academic freedom one has at the universities. For our part, we intend to gather it all in the autumn to see if we can find some common principles, make our own Chicago principles in Denmark, which may meet some of the concerned politicians.
Rejects “safe spaces” and “cancell culture”
Langergaard also rejects that the so-called cancellation culture should be a problem at Danish universities:
– There is a lot of talk about it, but we miss concrete examples of where there are “safe spaces” or “cancel culture” at the universities in Denmark. It does not happen.
The debate in Denmark is not unique. In France, for example the French Minister for Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal CNRS on a “review of all research” at universities to distinguish “what is academic research and what is activism and opinions”. Thousands of academics responded by being her go.
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So how does Langergaard read what is happening?
– You have an enormous freedom now, where some minorities can express themselves, he says and continues:
– You have someone who fights for it, and you have someone who is supported by it. It’s some feel that they feel that they feel known.
He draws the lines for a debate that haunted the Danish public in the summer of 2020. For selection by a few elected, among others, the manufacturer Hansen Is a name on the ice lolly «Eskimo» to «O’Payo».
While some put the ice cream down their throats, others thought it was in order.
– Eskimo is not the correct expression for a native Greenlander, but then there are some who are sure that there is someone who thinks you should not use the word that is offended by those who are offended that you call something an Eskimo -is. Some debates can run amok and become quite strange. It happens everywhere in society, not only in universities, but in universities you have many conscious young people who fight for their cause.
Langergaard has a clear message for students:
– If you go to university, you must also meet attitudes other than your own, you must endure hearing the counter-arguments. It is possible that these are groups that are not happy about it, but I have not heard of a single Danish university that has “safe spaces” where you are not allowed to meet other attitudes.
Was told to move out
Back to the relocation dispute and the press conference where Frederiksen made the universities above a demand to move out or cut study places. According to Langergaard, Danish university leaders were unprepared. He refers to the government declaration that and a half years ago and says it was stated that one would look at how one could get more educations out in the country.
– Then it was primarily a question of the professional colleges, he says and continues:
– After that, we did not hear anything from the government. Then come the moments with a proposal where they have put 25 dots on the map of Denmark, we had not been involved at all. They asked the universities to come up with a plan to move out to a percentage of the study places in ours, we could move out or downscale.
While the government’s work to knock in place and many majorities in the Folketing, Danish Universities worked to get the parties on its side.
– We came up with arguments for why it would partly be expensive and partly risk going beyond the quality of the educations, says Langergaard.
To make the story short: It ended with an agreement in the Folketing. Following an initial agreement in June 2021, a final agreement was adopted on March 22 this year. The goal is just under way, now it is at least five percent to be moved out before the end of 2030.
Storm around cutting plane
The eight universities chose to come up with an overall plan.
– What one university does depends on what the others do, if everyone moves their education to the same city, it is a problem. There was a need for coordination and cooperation.
Langergaard says they spent several months coordinating the universities.
At the same time, it attracted attention when the country’s largest university – the University of Copenhagen – announced in October that 1590 study places would be removed by 2030, in response to the demand from political parties. The university was accused of slaughtering the humanities after it became clear that 40 percent would be taken from the humanities. They responded by pointing to the political agreement, which states, among other things, that “education with particularly high demand and employment” should be given priority.
– It is the largest university, but also those that were most squeezed. Where should they move something to where it was not already a Danish university? To Funen, where we have the University of Southern Denmark? To Jutland, where we have Aarhus University? They are based in Copenhagen, where should they move education to? They chose to look at where to scale down and how high the employment rate is. Then the humanities come out badly. They followed the guidelines that were there, one of the criteria was that if you were to cut, you had to take employment into account.
– Denmark is quite a country
Minister of the Interior and Housing Kaare Dybvad Bek, who presented the plan together with Frederiksen and Minister of Education and Research Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen, during the press conference a year ago, pointed out in an interview with Khrono that several smaller colleges have been closed in Denmark.
– This has meant that we lack qualified labor in schools and private companies in several parts of the country. The main ambition is to ensure development in all parts of the country and ensure that the young people who live outside the largest city who have the opportunity to get a higher education, that they are not allowed to move to, for example, Copenhagen to take an education, he said.
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– Does not the government have a point, Langergaard, when they say that you must educate people in the districts if you want people living there?
– The government’s main argument is that it is centralized, but Denmark is quite a small country. We have eight universities, within an hour and a half you can get to a university in Denmark.
The question is how many study places which must be spread across the country, he believes. Langergaard also believes that student burden has been asked.
– What do they want? Many students want to go to a city where there is cultural life, he says.
Think it was also a political game
Langergaard also believes that universities were drawn into a political game.
– It was a regional election in Denmark in 2021, from a political point of view it was also a wish to say that «we must make sure that educational institutions come to the city where I am to be elected». It was also a game.
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He says that those from Danish universities came up with a proposal in which they proposed that instead of moving study places, one should create an environment where students lived for a period, associated with a company, with which the larger concrete projects.
– They get involved in the local environment, maybe a semester or two, before they come back and finish at university. Then they have become connected to a place and company.
They did not get their wish, but Langergaard says he is satisfied that, after all, it ended with a compromise where the proportion that had to be moved out or scaled down was adjusted from ten to five percent.