By Anette Marcher, AAU Communication and Public Affairs

In the coming months, the SSH faculty is facing restructuring. Dean Rasmus Antoft has just announced that he is initiating a process that will result in a new internal organisation of the research areas, degree programmes and administration in the entire SSH area.

"This is the natural next step in the merger of the old Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Social Sciences that we carried out in 2021. At that time, we did not touch the departments' portfolios, but instead focused on initiatives to create synergy and integration through our signature projects. But now the time has come to go a step further and look at how we internally organise ourselves at the SSH Faculty," says Rasmus Antoft.

Sustainable units

He points out that the fundamental factors that motivated the merger of the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences are still very much with us: AAU does not have the prospect of receiving more funding, so it is necessary to create organisational units that are sustainable in size and strength both academically and financially. In addition, there are new challenges such as declining youth cohorts, the Master’s programme reform and an uncertain world situation.

“We need to examine whether it makes academic sense to retain the six departments we have now, and in their current form. Maybe it makes more sense to move research environments or degree programmes – or to merge certain units. This is what we will clarify in the upcoming process, that SSH staff members will of course participate in,” says Rasmus Antoft.

He stresses that the important thing for him is that the composition of the departments makes academic sense and that they are of a size that enables them to meet future economic and demographic challenges we face.

The process for how the new SSH organisation is to be developed will not be established until it has been discussed in the Faculty Consultation Committee on 17 March. However, the dean emphasizes that he wants a process where all SSH staff members have the opportunity to contribute input and suggestions.

The hope is that a new structure for the SSH area – its departments and its administration – can be in place at the beginning of the summer and can take effect on 1 January 2026.

Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs