Update September 2025
Dear all UCPH Forward Fellows,
We are happy to share a short update on the activities and events of the society.
Less pressure, more purpose, please!
Last week, we had a great day on “From Pressure to Purpose : A Workshop on Reclaiming Balance in Your Research Career with Professor Karin Frei”. We started the day in the sun, then had coffee and pastries, and had ample time to talk and catch up. After a photo op, we walked to the Museum of Natural History guided by Kristoffer and had lunch in the botanical gardens. The peak of the day was the very personal and inspirational talk by Karin Frei, who burned out twice and now quit her professor position. She highlighted burnout as an occupational phenomenon that emerges when passion becomes identity, fueling a cycle of high performance, rising expectations, and chronic stress. While acute stress can boost short-term performance, prolonged stress undermines health and mental clarity, leading to collapse if unchecked. In academia especially, silence around burnout is common due to stigma, leaving many without support. Addressing burnout requires change at both personal and institutional levels, including recovery time and rethinking work–life balance. And, that’s just us linking things, we need a better organizational and structural commitment from our responsible leadership at the university to fight these issues – which links to the challenges of leadership.
Karin Frei wanted to reach out to all of us, so we’re sharing her new website for inspiration and more feedback; https://www.karinmargaritafrei.com/
This was the result of the SOF Personal Development Track and we want to give a huge shoutout to Kristoffer, Lou and Elizabeth for making it happen.
Open Challenges to Research Leadership
Next month we are inviting all of you, and research leaders and other managers and interested participants at UPCH to our one day research leadership conference on “Open Challenges to Research Leadership.” We are basically asking what does it mean to be a research leader today – and how can we meet the unique challenges of leading research at a university like ours? At this conference, we bring together three internationally renowned speakers to share their insights on research leadership and its future.
- Professor Linda Evans (University of Manchester) will open the day by asking: What is research leadership, and how may it be practised effectively?
- Julia Dannath (Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership, ETH Zurich) will speak on supporting research leaders on their leadership journey.
- Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu (UCL & Wolfson College, Cambridge) will highlight how equality, diversity and inclusion can be advanced through research leadership.
Also, rector David Dreyer Lassen has confirmed that he will open the day!
Together with leading voices from UCPH, they will explore how we can balance inclusion with accountability, ambition with sustainability, and creativity with efficiency.
This is on 18. September 2025 from 9-14 at Kosmopol, Fiolstræde 44, 1171 København K
We are getting a lot of positive attention, so please register here if you haven’t yet
Articles of Association
Looking further ahead into the semester, we are planning to gather the whole society for a constituting general assembly. Following feedback in the spring, we are now sharing the draft articles of association for the society. We will do a proper call for assembly, but for now we are sharing these for any input anyone might have the next few weeks. We want the articles to be as good as we can make them at this point and then we can change them again, when need arises. They are attached.
As always, as co-presidents we are trying to get the society flying, so do reach out if you have ideas, feedback or want to setup an event.
Very best,
Maria, Tim and Niels