Assistant professor Ebbe Sloth Andersen from Aarhus University has received EUR 2 million from the European Research Council (ERC). This grant will help him bring biological nanostructure research into a new phase in the field of synthetic biology – a field which may ultimately have enormous significance for the medicine, energy, food and agriculture of the future.

At the end of January, university Director Arnold Boon encouraged staff and students to send him any questions they would like him to respond to. Many students have seized that opportunity. Here are his answers.

A new start page for students, improved search functionality and more digital tools for file and knowledge sharing. These are some of the initiatives which are going to improve the user experience at AU websites.

The Committee on Education at AU has just allocated a pool for the development of the university’s degree programmes. Employees can apply for funding for projects that aim to reduce the time to degree.

Finances, work environment and the administration’s role in the organisation were some of the topics of the questions employees and students sent to University Director Arnold Boon. Read his answers here.

On 29 February, all members of AU staff will receive an email with a link to the psychological WPA 2016 questionnaire survey. The questionnaire will contain several AU-specific questions and 5-8 faculty-specific/administration-specific questions.

AU’s Sophos license expires on 29 February 2016. It is therefore important to know that if you have a computer with Sophos antivirus software, your computer will no longer be protected against virus after this date. Sophos antivirus software may be installed on your work computer and on your private computer.

Due to a relocation of the server rooms at the State and University Library, all IT systems at the State and University Library and the AU Library will be out of service on Friday, March 4 at 18:00 to Monday, 7 March at 12:00. In addition, the State and University Library will be closed for access on Saturday, March 5.