Danish Institute for Advanced Study

The Society of Fellows brings a breath of fresh air to the Danish Institute of Advanced Study

The Society is a springboard for community, collaboration, and consolidated relationships within the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) and across the University of Southern Denmark.

With 25 new Fellow positions, the Danish Institute for Advanced Study prepares to push beyond the frontier of knowledge

The tenure track DIAS Fellow positions within various academic fields will open soon

Sten Rynning Kronik: Det Kølige Overblik

Når det gælder passionerede konflikter som Israel-Palæstina, kommer videnskabens rationelle tradition til kort. Så hvad skal engagerede akademikere stille op?

New Study: Young People Envision a Dystopian Future

If we are to believe high school students from Denmark, life in 2060 will be anything but safe and comfortable. In a series of short stories, two-thirds of the 152 young participants in the study paint a dystopian picture of the future.

DIAS Visiting Junior Fellowships in Applied Phenomenology 2024 Call

Call for DIAS Junior Fellowships in Applied Phenomenology is now open — deadline Dec. 15th

Professor Christine Stabell Benn has been awarded the George Macdonald Medal

The medal is awarded by The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, for outstanding research leading to improvement of health in the tropics.

DIAS Interdisciplinary Phenomenology Cluster – Announcement and Call for New Members

A new cluster program has been established through the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) to facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaboration across multiple faculties.

New grant from the Velux Foundations

Kathrin Maurer (SDU) and Kristin Veel (KU) have been awarded a core-group program grant from the Velux Foundation with the project “The Aesthetics of Bio-Machines and the Question of Life”

6.7 million Danish kroner granted from the VELUX FOUNDATION to a project on The Aesthetics of Bio-Machines and the Question of Life

What constitutes life? Today we are surrounded by life-like digital technologies such as virtual assistants, generative computer systems, and adaptive robots. These new digital technologies represent a form of life and coexist closely with us. They raise the question whether we can consider them "alive" and how we, as humans, coexist with these life-forms.

Sten Rynning to be the new director of the Danish Institute for Advanced Study

SDU’s rector, Jens Ringsmose, has appointed professor of political science Sten Rynning as the new director of the University of Southern Denmark’s interdisciplinary elite research centre, DIAS.

Arrival of DIAS-MoCS Visiting Junior Fellows in Applied Phenomenology

Three visiting fellows will be hosted at SDU by the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) and the research unit, Movement, Culture and Society (MoCS) in the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics. During their stay, the fellows will prepare applications for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships, with the aim of securing EU funding to take up postdoctoral positions at SDU.

Can art make robots better?

Engineers don't just work with mathematical calculations, model drawings on chequered paper and thick reference books full of tables. They also work with art, increasingly so, and this is also the case at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark. But why exactly?

Starting early with foreign languages does not necessarily enhance learning

Younger does not necessarily mean better when it comes to learning English. This is according to the findings of an interdisciplinary research project that has followed two groups of children over a number of years.

Environmental toxin PCB found in deep sea trench

Researchers on a deep-sea expedition have found PCB in sediment samples from the more than 8,000-meter-deep Atacama Trench in the Pacific Ocean. "It is thought-provoking to find man-made toxins in one of the world's most remote and inaccessible environments," says expedition leader Ronnie N. Glud.

International recognition for football fitness and football professor Peter Krustrup

UEFA has awarded a Gold Award for "Best Social Initiative" to the Football Fitness U90 Training Camp, a project developed by SDU and DBU Bornholm.

Marie Curie grant for research into identity changes in people adapting to a life with pain

Canadian pain researcher Peter Stilwell receives prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship to be held at University of Southern Denmark.

Why are religious communities so slow in responding to the climate crisis?

Earth is facing the biggest climate crisis in human history, and environmental activists everywhere are striving to protect both humans and other organisms on earth with which they often feel a kinship. Meanwhile, the world religions are not effectively mobilizing in response. Interview with Professor of religion and nature/environmental ethics, Bron Taylor, who will visit SDU on 22 March 2023.

New Chairs at DIAS

We are proud to present Vijay Tiwari, Norbert Krüger, Annette Baudisch, Gregory Clark, Nina Bonderup Dohn and Sten Rynning as new DIAS Chairs

Rocks and oceans lead him back to ancient times

Donald Canfield uses chemistry and biology to study the Earth's past. His work often causes the rewriting of textbooks on the history of the oceans - and thus also the history of life. He is the 2023 recipient of the Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual Award in Science and Technology.

Carbon, soot and particles from combustion end up in deep-sea trenches

New research shows that disproportionately large amounts of carbon accumulate at the bottom of deep-sea trenches. The trenches may thus play an important role for deep-sea storage of organic material - and thus for the atmospheric Co2 balance.

When was the first time life began to predate on each other?

In the early oceans billions of years ago organisms lived peacefully side by side. Today, there are predators among us - when and how did this change happen? New research indicates that our single-celled ancestors began to feed on each other almost a billion years earlier than previously thought.

Former President of the European Research Council enters DIAS’ Advisory Board

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Nicolaas Kuiper honorary professor at IHES, is a new member of the Danish Institute of Advanced Study’s advisory board

”Where is Academia heading?” - an Interdisciplinary discussion between this year’s Doctors of Honour at SDU

On behalf of DIAS and this year’s nominators, we invite you to a joint event with our Doctors of Honour from all five of SDU’s faculties.

Be curious about the dogmas in your research field

DIAS challenges the dogmas that have a great impact on research

New collaboration between the Nordic Institutes of Advanced Study

An interdisciplinary approach to global issues and joint research funding are some of the possible activities for the new Nordic IAS.

SDU expert briefs the UN Security Council

The use of military drone technologies by terrorist groups is a threat to the world community. That was the main message in the speech that Associate Professor James Rogers has just given to the UN Security Council, where he was invited to share his knowledge about the terrorist use of drones.

Recruitment of postdoctoral researchers to SDU through DIAS

In the 2021–2022 academic year, DIAS fellow Anthony Vincent Fernandez established a program to recruit postdoctoral researchers to SDU.

Abuse and eugenically sterilization policies – “Once you’re in the middle of it, its difficult to lower the ambition”

DIAS Chair Klaus Petersen, professor of welfare history, has completed a comprehensive report for the Ministry of Social Affairs on the treatment of mentally and physically disable persons in Danish institutions 1933-1980.

The 2022 National Conference of Danish Historians

On May 19th the 2022 National Conference of Danish Historians was held at DIAS

Agnes Callamard: Russia’s War Against Ukraine: Implications for the World

Guest Lecture by Dr. Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International May 11th 11:15-12:15 in DIAS Auditorium (V24-501a-0). Open to All.

Anthony Fernandez wants to use philosophy to gain new in-sights into patients’ experiences

DIAS Fellow Anthony Fernandez is interested in the philosophical understandings of experience – and he hopes that his work can create new insights for researchers in fields beyond philosophy

Arctic sea ice is melting - Could the Arctic Ocean become an oa-sis for life?

Karl Attard, Fellow of Marine Science at DIAS, wants are more nuanced discussion of the con-sequences of melting ice in the Arctic Ocean.

Having the freedom to follow my ideas in an analytical way is a great privilege

Newly named DIAS fellow Lasse Aaskoven wishes for his research to have the potential to better inform public debates about policy issues.

Edward Baggs: On the mind and climate change

Edward Baggs, Assistant Professor, and new DIAS Fellow, argues that cognitive scientists should look at climate change from a collective point of view. He has written the following essay to explain why

Challenging Ideas and Scientific Curiosity: How to Inspire Interdisciplinary Research

For the past fifteen years professors Anne-Marie Mai and Klaus Petersen have collaborated on interdisciplinary research, merging their expertise within literature and history. As chairs at Danish Institute of Advanced Study, they now have a platform from which they can inspire younger colleagues to seek out interdisciplinary opportunities.

New book "Et Aldrende Danmark" published with contributions from DIAS affiliates

"Et Aldrende Danmark" by Torben M. Andersen og Jan Rose Skaksen is the newest publication from the Rockwool Foundation with contributions from DIAS Chairs, Kaare Christensen and the late James Vaupel, and DIAS Senior Fellow, Pieter Vanhuysse. 

Examples of cherry-picking of diagrams can be found in medieval Greek manuscripts

A DIAS research team wishes to get a better understanding of how medieval people thought – and how some of the mechanisms of cherry-picking of diagrams, we know from today, can be detected in texts from a thousand years ago.

How can you best measure the impact of interdisciplinary research? Pantelis and team want to find out

Hopefully, the project will lead to a better understanding of how interdisciplinary research works.

Armed with history and Big Data, James and Carolin are looking for answers to Climate Change

By combining the history of warfare with long data series of climate change DIAS-researchers hope to create a model for understanding and predicting climate induced conflict. If it wasn’t for DIAS, our project wouldn’t be happening, says James Rogers, assistant professor in War Studies at SDU.

DIAS Chairs amongst top scientists ranking

Research.com has published a top scientists ranking for Business and Management. Nicolai Foss and Kannan Govindan rank at number 1 and 2 in Denmark respectively.

Gareth Millward joins DIAS as Fellow of History

As of February 1st, Dr. Gareth Millward has joined Danish Institute for Advanced Study as Fellow of History with Chair of Humanities Klaus Petersen as mentor.

How do population changes influence democracies?

Pieter Vanhuysse participated in the Third Exploratory Meeting between European Commission Vice-President Dubravka Suica and 13 leading scholars to discuss current European policy challenges on democracy, demography, & demographic resilience.

Light footprint - heavy destabilising impact in Niger: why the Western understanding of remote warfare needs to be reconsidered

A new article by DIAS Fellow Dr. James Rogers has recently been published in International Politics. The article focuses on Western intervention in Niger, a nation heavily impacted by climate change, conflict, and terrorism.

“Genes, fat cells and life’s codes”: Educational material about Susanne Mandrup’s research

Susanne Mandrup’s research on the regulation of gene expression in fat cells has been featured in educational material for elementary school. Here she explains how DNA contains the instruction to all life and how this instruction is read in different cells.

Kronik: Nej, humaniora er ikke et hul af arbejdsløshed

Sundhedsvæsen, klima og migration. Humaniora får ikke lov til at hjælpe med løsninger. Det er på tide med en plan for strategisk forskning, der også tør satse på humanistisk forskning

Why we do citizen science

From October 26-29, 2021, a handful of representatives from SDU and OUH went to three Dutch universities to share knowledge and gather inspiration for new ways to broaden the research communication and open the university more for the broader public.

Six DIAS Chairs amongst Highly Cited Researchers

Clarivate has published their annual list of Highly Cited Researchers with no less than six DIAS Affiliates featured.

Viklet ind i Bob Dylan

Anne-Marie Mai har i årevis arbejdet med Bob Dylan fra en litterær vinkel. Om det handler om at redigere antologier og tidsskrifter, skrive hele bøger eller forord til genudgivelsen af sangskriverens egen roman Tarantula (1971), spænder litteratens akademiske interesse i kunstneren vidt. Igen i maj måned var Mai viklet ind i Dylan, og hun har til stadighed nye projekter om sangeren i horisonten.

WORKSHOP on Artificial Intelligence

December 9th 2021 14:00-17:00 (UTC+1)

Giving voice to the neglected: meet Klaus Petersen

Chair of Humanities Professor Klaus Petersen has a keen research interests in the development of the welfare state. He holds a PhD from the University of Copenhagen in 2001 and is trained as a historian. Over the years his work has become increasingly interdisciplinary combining insights from history, social sciences, and literary studies.

Do you remember 9/11?

October 7, 2001, USA initiated their first attack in the global war on terror. This was also the first day of the war in Afghanistan, a conflict sparked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Although the chaos and drone strikes in Afghanistan continues today, these initial attacks occured twenty years ago this week and will be marked by a special event on Wednesday 8, at DIAS with Joe Dittmar, a survivor of 9/11.

DIAS Chairs edit special Bob Dylan-issue

Chairs of Humanities Anne-Marie Mai and Klaus Petersen has edited a special issue of Aktualitet with an exclusive focus on Dylans influence and inspiration between art and research

At a time when societies are physically and ideologically divided, by COVID and climate change, Dr. James Rogers, and artist Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir seek to bridge differences and connect people with a joint project on human insecurity and art.

Fellow Marco Ragni Departs DIAS

After a little over a year in Denmark, Professor Marco Ragni is ending his fellowship at The Danish Institute for Advanced Study and returning to Germany for a full professorship.

When and how does a land become rich? Insight into Francesco Cinnirella’s research

As an economic historian, DIAS Fellow Francesco Cinnirella is interested in how a country becomes wealthy in a historical perspective. Particularly, when countries begin to become innovative.

Caroline Kennedy-Pipe to join DIAS

To the left: Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and James Rogers meeting with the President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson (in the middle) in 2019

Carolin Löscher receives DFF1 grant for her project “Exploring the oceanic sink for the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O)”

Carolin Löscher, DIAS Fellow and Associate Professor at Nordcee, SDU, has received a DFF1 grant of 2.9 mio. DKK for her research project “Exploring the oceanic sink for the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O)” where she and her group will explore the emission of nitrous oxide in Baltic, Greenlandic and tropical Atlantic waters.

Football Fitness gives an important boost to health in women treated for breast cancer

Football Fitness strengthens bones and muscles as well as improving balance in women treated for breast cancer. This in turn reduces the risk of various established long-term consequences of the medical treatment the women have undergone.

DIAS Chair N. Asger Mortensen receives his second higher doctoral degree

In March, our Chair of Technical Science N. Asger Mortensen successfully defended his dissertation which marks the second higher doctoral degree of his career.

Welcome to four new Chairs from The Faculty of Health Sciences

We are very happy to announce that the professors Ewa Roos, Moustapha Kassem, Peter Krustrup and Aleksander Krag from The Faculty of Health Sciences are joining Danish Institute for Advanced Study as Chairs.

Angela Y. Chang receives prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship

We are very happy to announce that our fellow Angela Y. Chang has received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in support of her research project ‘Measuring Experienced Disease Burden (ExpBoD)’.

Cycling through time: DIAS Fellow Kedar Nath Natarajan’s Interdisciplinary Research on Embryonic Development

As a molecular biologist and computational scientist, Kedar Nath Natarajan is looking to understand the early development of the human embryo. Through interdisciplinary collaborations between the fields of molecular biology, microscopy, genomics, informatics and big-data analysis, Kedar Nath Natarajan seeks to answer a fundamental biological question: How does the cell cycle influence the decision-making of stem cells?

‘I always feel listened to’

SDU's first woman dean, Marianne Holmer, took office as dean at the Faculty of Science a year ago. She certainly feels different from her male colleagues but believes it’s as much due to her personality as her gender.

Frogs’ lungs help them find a mate

Male frogs call to attract females, but how can females tell that it is a male of the same species calling? Green tree frogs use the same principle as in noise-cancelling headphones – and they are far better at it.

Will this solve the mystery of the expansion of the universe?

Physicists’ new proposal that a new type of extra dark energy is involved is highlighted in scientific journal.

Welcome to new Chairs in DIAS Management Committee

On 1 January 2021, we welcomed new Chairs from 3 faculties in the Management Committee:

Claes de Vreese appointed as new External Chair

We are very happy to announce that Professor Claes de Vreese joins Danish Institute of Advanced Study as External Chair of Social Sciences.

DIAS Fellow Rosa María Rodríguez Porto Receives Prestigious Ramón y Cajal Grant

One of our very first fellows, Assistant Professor Rosa María Rodríguez Porto at Centre for Medieval Literature, is returning to Spain where she will continue her research on medieval book illumination and Iberian courtly culture at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

DIAS Chairs appointed Knight of The Order of Dannebrog

Understanding the Building Blocks of the Universe: Benjamin Jäger’s Research on Quarks and the Early Universe

As a theoretical physicist, DIAS Fellow Benjamin Jäger seeks to understand the mysteries of the universe. In order to do that, it’s necessary to study the basic building blocks of the universe, one of which are the quarks

James Rogers: The “Second Drone Age” Requires a New International Accord

“The world has entered a second drone age, in which new “Drone Powers” use remotely operated military technologies as the spearhead of state power, at the cost of thousands of lives.” - James Rogers and Agnes Callamard

CONNECTIONS – Sculpture Exhibition by Steinunn Thórarinsdottir

This summer, 10 sculptures by the award-winning Icelandic artist Steinunn Thórarinsdottir will be exhibited at SDU as a part of DIAS Fellow Dr James Rogers’ interdisciplinary project on war and art. The CONNECTIONS exhibition is possible thanks to the Albani Fonden, that has supported the project with 200,000 DKK.

Four DIAS Chairs Recognized as ‘Highly Cited Researcher’

This year, four of our Chairs have been recognized for producing multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science:

Measuring the Experienced Burden of Disease

Since March 2020, PhD Angela Y. Chang has been a DIAS Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Department of Clinical Research at SDU. She is committed to reducing health and wealth inequalities globally through her research and is motivated by the belief that research can provide the inputs needed to inform policies and improve resource allocation, and ultimately, impact population health

Joel Cox receives prestigious “Sapere Aude” grant

Today, DIAS Fellow Joel Cox receives the prestigious “Sapere Aude” grant of 6.192,000 DKK from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for his research project “Towards single-photon nonlinear optics in atomically-thin materials”.

DIAS presenting: Virtual U.S. Election Briefings

This U.S. election has the potential to seismically alter both U.S. and global politics. It is billed to be “the most important election for a generation”. But what does this really mean? And how will the election result influence international affairs? What should Europe be ready for?

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters admits DIAS Director as member

DIAS Director Marianne Holmer enters an unique organisation with an agelong tradition and former members such as Niels Bohr, H. C. Ørsted, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin.

Welcome to Ane – new administrative coordinator at DIAS

We are happy to share with all – from September 1st Ane Kristine Coster is DIAS’ new academic coordinator.

New Advisory Board in DIAS

We are very happy to welcome onboard a very competent team of resources; Henrik Tvarnø, Bente Klarlund Pedersen, Robbert Dijkgraaf and Peter Baldwin.

DIAS researcher is #4 on TwiLi Index for Denmark

You probably already know the h-index; measuring the productivity and citation impact of a scholar. The TwiLi Index measures the social media impact of researchers and has three DIAS-affiliates on the list – with a DIAS Fellow in top five!

Professor Klaus Petersen elected member of Academia Europaea

At the 5th North American Industrial Engineering and Operations Management conference, August 10-14, 2020, Professor and Head of Centre with Department of Technology and Innovation, SDU, and at Centre for Sustainable Supply Chain Engineering, SDU, Kannan Govindan was awarded “Distinguished Professor in Supply Chain Management”.

Experienced Associate Professor in cognitive AI joins DIAS

Associate Professor Marco Ragni has a keen interest in the specifics of how the human mind process information and how this differs from formal and computational approaches. With the goal to push the development of true predictive cognitive models for the individual reasoner by methods from AI and Cognitive Science forward, he enters DIAS this summer.

Newly appointed Professor (mso) in Humanities and Technology joins DIAS as Senior Fellow

The relationship between technology and humanities has interested the literary scholar Kathrin Maurer for a long time. How does the aesthetic field (literature, visual art) represent and interpret technical inventions? How does technology affect human communities? How does technology impact the human sensorium?

DIAS and CWS researchers provide evidence to major new UN report

Interdisciplinary Professor with vast experience enters DIAS as Senior Fellow

Paul Richard Sharp is an industrious and dynamic Professor appointed at Department of Business and Economics at SDU, and now also Senior Fellow at DIAS. With him he brings extensive resume and a number of responsibilities.

Dr. James Rogers, DIAS Fellow in War Studies, and member of SDU’s Centre for War Studies, has been awarded 380,000 DKK (EUR 51,000.00) for the project ‘The Vulnerabilities of the Drone Age: Strategic Foresight Planning out to 2035’.

Professor and world citizen is now affiliated with DIAS

His resume testifies to a great engagement in the global social debate and shows an impressive academic work in Leuven, London, Budapest, Haifa and Vienna. Yes, Pieter Vanhuysse has left excellent marks. We are therefore pleased to announce that he has now also joined Danish Institute for Advanced Study as Senior Fellow.

Industrious Professor in History appointed as Senior Fellow at DIAS

Jeppe Nevers is the latest addition of excellent researches at DIAS. He has made himself noticed as a dedicated researcher and teacher, and in 2016 by the age of just 37 he achieved the title as Professor at the University of Southern Denmark.