New Vice Deans for the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences

The faculty will welcome two Vice Deans when Jens Ringsmose takes up the position as Dean at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences on 1 June 2019.

Sten Rynning will be responsible for the faculty's research activities, and Jan Guldager Jørgensen will take up the position as Vice Dean for Education.

Read more about the two Vice Deans and what they will emphasise in their new duties below.

Research that pushes the boundaries

Sten Rynning comes from a position as Professor of International Politics at SDU, and has studied NATO and the war in Afghanistan for many years. Since 2011, Sten Rynning has been in charge of the Center for War Studies at SDU – a centre, which he himself established, and where he will continue to work on his research alongside his position as Vice Dean.

Sten Rynning, about his new position:

- I am really looking forward to engaging in the work of Vice Dean for Research. The demands of society on us as researchers are moving solely towards the fact that we need to be better at creating specific insights for the benefit of society, and I look forward to working with the talent that the faculty has to offer in striving towards this aim.

- Back in the day, I established the faculty's Center for War Studies as an interdisciplinary environment in both Business and Social Sciences and the Humanities – a centre for pushing the boundaries of insight and relevance. In my experience, the boundaries can only be pushed if we have strong and integrated research environments that have the freedom to explore the boundaries and the will to extend beyond them. Integration, freedom and ambition – these are the key words that I take with me to dialogue within these research environments, says Sten Rynning.

Commited to education

The job as Vice Dean for Education is familiar to Jan Guldager Jørgensen, as he held the same position in the period from 2007 to 2014. He has been very much engaged in the field of education both as Head of Studies and Vice Dean, and has most recently been in charge of SDU's Department of Business and Economics since the autumn of 2015.

Jan Guldager Jørgensen, about the new position:

- The field of education is very close to my heart, and I am really looking forward to working with the educational portfolio of the entire faculty again. We are obliged to perform a major societal task and provide our students with research-based programmes that are relevant and create value for the private and public labour market. I am looking forward to working on this in collaboration with all departments and the administration.

- The demands and expectations of society on us are constantly evolving. We must be able to assess and take stock of these at all times, and on this basis I will work on securing the best frameworks and conditions for our programmes. Our research environments have a strong foundation, which ensures the academic and teaching content of the programmes. And this is where the collaboration of and between the departments plays an important role in the development of the programmes. I will be working to develop and strengthen these collaborative relations, says Jan Guldager Jørgensen.

Jan Guldager Jørgensen and Sten Rynning will take up their positions on the 1st of June.