Name, title and department:

Romeo V. Turcan, Professor at Aalborg University Business School

Why are you running for the board?

I will be able to create a long-lasting impact on our university through the visions, insights, ideas, and approaches that I earned during my experience in and outside academia and that I will share during my tenure as a member of the AAU Board with the fellow Board members and with the members of the AAU management team. Consistent with the vision and mission of our university, I will passionately represent and safeguard the best interests of my constituency.

In your opinion, what are AAU's biggest challenges?

My election campaign to the University Board rests on four pillars that are imperative for our university long term, sustainable growth. These pillars have emerged from three, on-going, major concerns, issues and challenges that we as a university and its employees face and will be facing if not adequately and timely addressed. These on-going major concerns, issues and challenges are:

• Denmark is too small to ensure sustainable growth of our university
• Our university is too big to ignore and turn a blind eye to the foundations that define organizations in general and universities in particular
• Our university is too unique to allow its DNA, i.e., PBL, to decay and loose its unique appeal to our main constituents – current and prospective student

And what is the solution?

- Denmark is too small to ensure sustainable growth of our university:

We need to proactively identify and pursue growth opportunities internationally, outside the national borders.

- Our university is too big to ignore and turn a blind eye to the foundations that define organizations in general and universities in particular:

We need to ensure explicit and genuine separation of and exercise of governance and management.

We need to ensure explicit and genuine exercise of university autonomy.

- Our university is too unique to allow its DNA, i.e., PBL, to decay and loose its unique appeal to our main constituents – current and prospective students.

We need to have a truly inter-disciplinary PBL model.

Why vote for you?

I am committed to the goals and values of higher education, strengthened by my earlier experience in the private and public sectors and by my multi-disciplinary background in engineering and social sciences. Prior to commencing my academic career, I worked in a range of posts involving public policy intervention in restructuring, rationalizing and modernizing business and public sectors such as power, oil, military high-tech, management consulting, and higher education. I started and as CEO led a branch of an international NGO.

I thus bring wide ranging business, academic, and fund-raising experience, which I will use to help defend the university from external and internal challenges. At the same time, I will seek to identify, create and pursue growth and development opportunities to foster the international recognition and reputation of our university.

Since 2012, I have been the main applicant and coordinator of four EU funded projects, incl., Marie S. Curie ITN, with a total value of more than 56 mil DKK. I received my PhD and MSc from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and my first degree Diploma of mechanical engineer from Air Force Engineering Military Academy, Riga, Latvia.

What are your key issues?

These are the four pillars or key areas I will be working on during my tenure as a Board member are:

1. Sustainable growth with a focus on in-ward internationalization
2. An authentic exercise, accountability and separation of governance and management
3. An authentic university autonomy, with a special focus on balancing curiosity or investigator driven research (bottom up) and strategic or mission driven research (top-down) research
4. Innovating PBL model across all disciplines and structures, balancing research-based teaching and teaching-based research

Effective engagement of the academic community and key stakeholders in these and other university affairs will be my key objective. I will meet and communicate with staff and other key stakeholders to ensure that I can effectively represent their views and that they are aware of developments.