By Anette Marcher, AAU Communication. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication

After the final approval by the University Board on 1 March, work will soon begin on setting specific goals and content for AAU's two joint missions. The next step is to draw up terms of reference for the two research steering groups that will lead the missions.

The joint missions will generally deal with issues concerned with the well-being of children and young people, and sustainable energy supply. TECH Dean Thomas Bak, who is strategically responsible for the missions in the Executive Management, believes that AAU has good opportunities to contribute to solving the societal challenges the missions are targeting.

- We have a global climate challenge that we must address by transforming not only our energy production but also our consumption. This is an interdisciplinary issue, which is of course technological and systemic, but we will not achieve our goal if we do not also address behaviour. This is thus an interdisciplinary issue where AAU, as a multi-faculty university, can involve several of our disciplinary areas, says Thomas Bak about the joint mission on sustainable energy supply.

Listen to Thomas Bak talk more about the joint mission on sustainable energy supply in this video:

Similarly, Thomas Bak points out that AAU is in a strong position for the joint mission on well-being among children and young people.

- With regard to the well-being of children and young people, we have an environment for research on children and youth at Aalborg University, especially at SSH. But we also have researchers in public health and digitalisation, and the collaboration between these researchers, I imagine, can advance the area of well-being, says Thomas Bak.

Listen to Thomas Bak talk more about the joint mission on the well-being of children and young people in this video:

In parallel with the final approval by the University Board, the administrative framework for the joint missions also fell into place. A mission secretariat with a mission manager for each of the two missions will be established as soon as possible. They will be tasked with portfolio management, representing interests in relation to stakeholders and funding, as well as general project management and support for the research work. The mission secretariat is organisationally under Research Services and is physically placed at AAU Innovate.

As mentioned, the research content of the joint missions is in the hands of two research steering groups, each headed by a chairperson. In the near future, AAU's Strategic Council for Research and Innovation will prepare terms of reference for the research steering groups; the faculties will then appoint members to these groups.

Since December, two working groups have been tasked with defining the domains of the missions, describing realistic results and effects of the research, and drawing up a tentative plan for how to carry out the two missions. The working groups have also identified research environments that could be involved in the missions.

The observations of the working groups will serve as the basis for the work of the two research steering groups in terms of designing the missions and setting specific content and goals for them.

- The working groups have now created a foundation for us to move forward with the joint missions, and I would like to thank them for their hard work. We now need to begin establishing the organisational setup and filling both research and administrative roles, says Thomas Bak.